Mai HiMACE
by 22671991
Summary: An attempt to tie Mai HiME and Mai Otome together. Violence, coarse language and plenty of nudity. NatsukiMaiMikoto NinaArika ArikaMashiro TakumiAkira HarukaYukino and more. Updates sporadic. Please mind the British English.
1. Chapter 1 : Introduction

It was raining again. Not just raining, it was _seriously_ raining, what seemed like innumerable buckets of water being dumped over the city from high above, until it all blended together into a single endless torrent, like a waterfall from the sky. Mai reflected, it was the good kind of rain. It was so thick and constant that every time she looked up, the neon lights of the city around her made strangely coloured halos in midair because of all the rain. Everything looked so unreal, almost like a movie. It was so atmospheric. 

Of course, she was soaking wet, but that didn't really matter. She had an umbrella to prevent any further soakage and her heavy raincoat kept her warm against the chill of a midsummer shower. Her shoes splashed noisily through the puddles forming on the uneven paving as she ran along the street past storefront after storefront. Her hair bobbed about, limp and drenched from the rain already, splattering stray droplets of water against her face with each movement. She waved cheerfully to the one or two faces she recognised along her way, everything from an amiable chuckle to an agitated frown or two in reply to her irrational exuberance. When she reached the stairway up the outside of her apartment building, she dashed up the steps two at a time, swinging her bag out to her side and swishing her umbrella and generally acting like Maria Von Trapp in the Alps. She unlocked her apartment door, slipped inside, and then leaned on it from inside, panting softly.

Her apartment was something of a mess at first sight, but it was always that way on a Monday evening. There would be much work to do the next day to make her would-be home presentable. Not that she entertained quite as often as one might expect given her penchant for neatness.

Mai folded her umbrella up carefully and sat it handle-first into its holder on the floor beside the front door, neat and tidy. She removed the thick brown overcoat and hung it up on the back of the door, neat and tidy, if somewhat drenched. She shrugged off her bright orange jacket and then started fiddling with the buttons of her blouse.

"My legs are _freezing_!" she complained to no one in particular, stepping out of her shoes. One hand reached down to brush at the orange-and-white miniskirt that made up the bottom half of her waitress' uniform. "That manager! I swear, he only makes me wear this so he can stare at my legs, the pervert." She paused in front of the mirror and took a quick look at her rather bedraggled self. Her reflection stuck its tongue out at her impudently and then hopped off towards the kitchen.

Tokiha Mai was a fairly ordinary young lady, if a little conspicuous at times. She was not particularly tall and her face was plain, if a little rounded from all the grinning and frowning and that odd little expression she used an awful lot around certain people, that made her look like a mischievous schoolgirl. Her hair was a blazing orange mess, thick and bushy, all muddled spikes that folded down from the top of her head to either side and then ended in a jumbled mass around the back and sides. It swished about as she shook her head, hanging a little limply just now what with being soaked through and all. She dumped the towel over her head again and rubbed away furiously.

Her eyes were fiery orange like her hair, passionate and intense to say the very least, and they focused on things at times with almost burning concentration. They were expressive eyes, and they were offset neatly by her petite, pointed nose. Her lips were full but still rather narrow, especially for a young girl in her early twenties. They were rarely adorned with anything at all, though there was a special shade of hot-pink lipstick reserved for "special occasions." They pouted adorably at just the right times, and one might guess she had had plenty of practice using them.

Her body was certainly not stereotypically Japanese. Her hips were broad, her waist narrow and her chest, some might say, over-abundant. She had been well enough endowed as a young girl in her late school days, but once she hit nineteen her chest had finally crossed the border from 'tempting' to 'voluptuous', as had the rest of her figure. It might be a pain at times keeping it all perfectly in line, but the effects it had on men and women alike, from jealousy to desire to willing submission, were more than worth the effort. It had certainly made acquiring her current job that much easier.

Mai yawned as she stepped out of the tiny bathroom, her only towel draped over her head. Her whole body was smattered with moisture, smooth and clean, her pale skin gleaming slightly in the sharp fluorescent light of the apartment. Her bare feet slapped soundly against the bare laminate-wood flooring. She slung the towel across the back of the chair standing in front of her still-cluttered table and walked, completely naked, over to the window. Looking out, she could see only the same boring view of one tiny region of downtown Tokyo as she had every other day since she had moved in. The sushi bar down on the corner was still having a special offer, just this week. The bookstore was still closing down at any time now. The new hardware store was still not open yet, though it wouldn't be long, really! And of course, it was still raining. She snapped the blinds shut and turned with a heavy sigh to regard the formidable task ahead; that being of cleaning her apartment once again.

"Takumi, you're lucky you're still in college."

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It was just after midnight when Mai woke. The bedroom was pitch dark and only the faint glow of green from the clock on her bedside table illuminated the room. If anything, the pitifully weak greenish light outlining the bed-covers and all the other things on the table only made things worse; the contrast made the rest of the room look all the more dark by comparison to the point that Mai couldn't see a damn thing past the foot of the bed.

"Stupid…" She flopped down onto her back again to go back to sleep.

Suddenly, there came a sharp rapping noise against the door of her apartment.

Mai bolted upright. She definitely had not imagined that, had she? No, it had been far too defined a sound to have been just a figment of her imagination or some subconscious dream leakage or anything like that. It had most definitely been real, a sound as of someone tapping very small knuckles against the wooden door of the apartment.

There it was again! Mai fought down the immediate urge to recoil and instead gathered her natural curiosity up in its place. She rose, throwing off the covers behind her, and strode resolutely across the bedroom floor to the door. Before opening it however, she took a brief moment to close her eyes, breathing deeply. When she opened them again the door handle in her hand was at least slightly better defined in the darkness, and her heart had calmed itself down nicely.

"Better," she breathed to herself and then calmly, slowly slid the bedroom door open wide.

The apartment was still empty, as it had been when she had gone to bed. It was also considerably cleaner than it had been, after her bout of Monday-evening cleaning. The table to her right by the window was polished and shining, slivers of moonlight glinting off its surface through the slits in the blinds. Both chairs were tucked neatly away, various articles of clothing removed and sent to their respective areas to be washed, stored or the like. The smooth wooden floorboards were gleaming brightly in much the same way. Across the room in front of her, the counter separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment was clean of obstructions again and ready to be used, not that it served much purpose other than collecting dust and newspapers. The refrigerator was humming softly away to itself. To the left was the front door to the apartment, with a small area where the raised wooden floor was cut back to reveal the smooth grey concrete below. The umbrella sat in its cradle by the door and beside it was a large rectangular wooden box full of old newspapers, crumpled plastic bags and crushed cans all sorted into separate compartments.

There was that tapping noise again, followed by a faint sort of scratching sound. Mai snatched a robe from the hook hanging on the wall next to her bedroom door and slipped it on as she hurried across to the doorway. Her mind raced to find some reasonable explanation for the noises. "Must be a cat or something, yeah. Or something like that." She slid the bolt back and slowly opened the door, peering out through the gap as she did so.

There was no one there.

Puzzled, she pulled the door shut again…and almost jumped out of her skin when something down below her yelped in pain.

There was a person on the floor! Judging from the size of that dim, shadowy figure where it lay sprawled limply on the concrete floor in front of the apartment door, it was a fairly young person, not more than just a teenager perhaps. Mai reached to her side and flicked on the porch light.

A horrifyingly large puddle of blood was the first thing to catch her eye.

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It was fast approaching one in the morning, and the hospital foyer had been practically empty for hours. Patients trickled in and out singularly, or in small groups of friends or family. Most of the usual day-shift staff had already left for the night. The foyer was as bright as always, despite the lack of occupants, and the glare from the fluorescent lights spilled forth onto the paving outside in a wide semi-circle. Cars passed by now and again but there had been no emergency calls for almost an hour. The last big action had been a wheelchair-bound old man in diabetic shock, thankfully not so far as unrecoverable.

Behind the wide sweeping curve of the reception desk to one side of the main entrance, there was quite the heated conversation going on. One of the older, more experienced nursing staff was relating some experience or other of hers to the receptionists, who appeared to be listening avidly while still typing away at their respective keyboards. A smart young doctor was hovering behind the nurse in a rather conspicuous fashion, glancing now and then at each of the three women and then averting his eyes to his clipboard as if there were something fascinating on it. The nurse did catch his eye on one occasion and gave him a playful scolding, smacking the pillow she carried (for whatever reason, that might have been part of the story) across the back of his blonde-haired head. A lone janitor was slowly and methodically mopping his way back and forth across the polished tile flooring in front of the main doors, humming some nameless tune to himself from under his blue uniform cap; he looked over at the small group by the desk, chuckled knowingly and simply went back to work.

"Fujino-san!"

On the other side of the entrance were several small rows of chairs of the clearly disposable variety, each one a drab steel-grey folding frame with bright blue plastic seat and back. On one of these chairs, head bowed to the large red book in her lap, was seated a rather important woman in a neat, light brown suit.

"Fujino-san," the young secretary repeated for the third time in a slightly exasperated voice.

The woman looked up, bewildered. She blinked several times, shook her head, and then smiled at the secretary. "Good evening, Moko-chan."

The secretary sighed as she approached, shaking her own head with a hopeless expression. "More like good morning, ma'am." She lifted one hand and tapped the back of her wrist. "It's about time you went home, Fujino-san. I've got all the paperwork for this week's stock requests sorted on my desk for tomorrow." She leaned back slightly as the suit-clad woman lifted herself to her feet, towering over her secretary by a good foot or two.

To say Fujino-san was tall was a misconception; she was just tall compared to her secretary, and broad, in the hip and the chest, and not a little overzealous with her makeup at times, but it always turned out just right. She was a respectable and quite beautiful woman in her late twenties who looked not so much older as simply far more mature than her age might tell. She always wore the same light brown short-skirt suit to work, or a similar one in black, or grey. Her hair was long and fine, some shade of brown somewhere between beige and chestnut, and it accented her deep reddish eyes perfectly, hanging midway down her backing a simple braid.

Motoko, on the other hand, was a very short girl at least five years younger than her superior from appearances alone. She kept her narrow, modestly endowed young body tucked neatly into a makeshift suit; the white button-up blouse, always pressed, the thin black jacket and matching knee-length skirt, and dainty black flat-sole shoes on her similarly small feet. A narrow pair of silver-framed glasses perched on the end of her delicate nose, always seeming barely seconds away from falling off her face at all times. Her unusually pale blue eyes were wide and round and expressive, but they mostly expressed the same contemptuous resignation with which she regarded practically everything. Her hair was pinned back on one side by a simple black clip so that it folded back behind her left ear, where on the other side it draped down the side of her face like a thick blonde curtain. Behind, it reached just down between her shoulders, and was almost always tied up in a neat bun instead of being left free-flowing.

The secretary sighed her practiced sigh of long-suffering and shook her head again. "Fujino-san, please, just go home already. I can take care of whatever's left here."

The older woman smiled broadly down at her assistant with what one might consider a slightly suggestive twinge. "You're right, Moko-chan. I must leave my work in your very capable hands." She gathered up the book she had been reading along with several sheaves of papers, tucked them into the bag that hung from her shoulder and then tucked the edge of her blouse down properly.

Motoko turned away to attend to more important matters as her superior finally left for the night, but not before a hand graced her rear end. It was rewarded with a familiar yelp.

"Don't stay up too long, Moko, dear," chuckled the taller of the two over her shoulder, waving her hand idly. Motoko fumed quietly at the brunette woman's back for a moment before disappearing into her office.

However, Director Fujino didn't get too far before trouble erupted in her face as it seemed to do so often. She was just stepping over the threshold and out into the freezing midnight air when something large and brightly-coloured collided with her head-on with some considerable momentum. Down she went, and the unknown assailant almost came crashing down atop her.

"Ow," she muttered sarcastically to herself as she dusted off her skirt. She stood slowly, looking up to see what had hit her. When it turned out to be a young girl, and a rather pretty one at that, she raised an eyebrow. Her horoscope _had_ said today would be her lucky day, had it not? Suddenly, out of the blue, here was quite the ravishing young twenty-something orange-haired girl knocking her off her feet without warning.

Before she could say anything however, the mysterious girl with the orange hair rattled out a swift apology and swept straight past her into the hospital foyer. She appeared to be carrying something…

"Oh for…" She dashed in after the girl, waving her bag up in the air towards the desk. "Hitomi, stop flirting and get this young lady here to the nearest  
ER!" She gave the orange-haired girl a rather zealous whacking on the shoulder with one finger. "What's your name, dear?"

"M…Mai!" replied the girl a little hesitantly. "To-ki-ha Mai." One of the receptionists produced a pen and a small book practically out of nowhere and started scribbling, as did the doctor. The nurse, Hitomi as her name, wrapped her arms firmly about the bundled heap of cloth and gently levered it from the young girl's grasp. With her front now more open to the eye, the huge wet bloodstain all over the front of Mai's clothing was blindingly obvious. Blood trickled down off the heap of wrapped fabric, which gave several weak grunts in response to the sudden flurry of motion around it. The scrawny, narrow, naked legs dangling down to the floor below began flailing about, and what might be an arm reached out of the huddled mass and tried to strike the nurse carrying it.

While Mai looked on in frustration, both relieved and confused at the same time, that older brown-haired woman she had bumped into took her gently by the hand and turned her around.

"Hello, miss? Are you alright?" Mai blinked.

"I…think so." She looked down at her feet for a moment with a distraught expression. "Just that nothing like this has ever…" Then she looked up at the taller woman with something of a scowl. "Wait, who _are_ you anyway?"

"Fujino Shizuru," chuckled she, and shook Mai's hand with a formal bow of her head. "I'm in charge here. And trust me, your friend will be just fine."

"He's not…she…" Mai bit the tip of her tongue. "I don't know who that is. I don't even know if it's a man or a woman." She turned to watch the nurse, now accompanied by a second, shifting the ragged bundle up onto a trolley. The whole ensemble soon after disappeared through a set of swinging doors at considerable speed.

A hand on her shoulder almost startled her. "Don't worry, miss. Everything will be fine. I'll see to it myself."

A cough interrupted the conversation. When Shizuru turned, there was one of the reception staff standing and waiting dutifully to take Mai's details. "Ah, yes, of course!" Shizuru plucked the pen and clipboard from the receptionist's hands and gestured Mai over towards the chairs waiting along the foyer wall. "I'll take care of this, don't worry Molly. You just make sure your partner doesn't fall asleep at her desk again, okay?"

The receptionist shot her the kind of look one saved for the bizarrely eccentric, which Shizuru ignored completely, and returned to her post.

"So," Shizuru continued once she had made sure Mai was seated properly and at least calmed down a little. "To start off, just what happened?"

Mai bit her lip and stared at her hands where they sat in her lap. "Well…I'm not really sure," she replied after a while. "I was asleep, at home." Shizuru held up a hand.

"Home, you say?"

"Oh, that's the Jogousaki building East of here. I live in one of the apartments."

Shizuru smiled slightly as she scribbled. "Must be a little crowded for a young lady, living in such small accommodation. I've seen Jogousaki myself not too long ago."

"It's not really that bad," defended Mai, shaking her head. "It reminds me of Fuuka."

Shizuru cursed under her breath as the pencil snapped. Mai gave her a most peculiar look. "What is it? Did I say something offensive?"

"You went to Fuuka Gakuen?" asked Shizuru while she fished in her blouse pocket for a pen. "That big, expensive academy in the mountains? You went there?"

Mai nodded proudly. "I went and I graduated!"

"Funny…" The older woman shook her head briefly. Her fingers found something pen-shaped and she pulled it out with a triumphant huff. "But then, why would such a well-educated girl be living in a place like Jogousaki?" she pondered aloud, already back to scribbling down on the clipboard as she did so. "If you don't mind my asking, that is?"

"It's okay. It is pretty odd, I know." Mai leaned back into her chair a little more and looked up at the ceiling, oblivious to Shizuru's eyes darting up and down her body as she took down yet more notes.

A strange thing to be dressed in at such a time of night, indeed, the unbalanced combination of a short blue skirt and a bright, fluffy pink jumper. Her hair was decidedly untidy and there were dark patches below those pale violet eyes that showed she had had nowhere near enough sleep that night.

"Anyway," interjected Shizuru when it was obvious the younger girl had either zoned out on her or was uncomfortable with that train of conversation. "About what happened…"

"Ah!" Mai sat up straight and lifted her arms up above her head, lacing her fingers and stretching out with several disconcertingly loud cracks. "Yes, well, it was just about midnight you see. And I was asleep. There was this strange knocking noise at my door that must have woke me up." She looked over to the doors through which the nurse had disappeared along with that bundled human-shaped thing. "When I opened the door, there was this…person…on the floor outside my apartment. Scratching at the door. And there was all this blood all over…"

Shizuru coughed nice and loudly and sat up straighter as she continued writing. "Well, I think that's all the details we need." Mai seemed to relax slightly at that, so the brunette allowed herself another small victory in the name of mental stability. "You should probably get yourself back on home and let us take care of your…friend. Unless you'd like to stay here?"

Mai was already searching through the few pockets she had for something. She eventually dipped a hand into her cleavage, at which point Shizuru had to start biting her tongue, and out came a small piece of white card.

"Here," she said, offering the card to the older woman. "That's my mobile. I had these printed off by the dozen but I never seem to use them." She chuckled weakly.

"Mobile, hm?" Shizuru took a mental snapshot of that number before slipping the card under the clipboard clip along with the "Patient Details" sheet. "I suppose that might explain why you carried her…him…whatever…all the way from Jogousaki."

Mai blushed slightly and looked down at her feet. "Well y'see, I can't afford a phone in the apartment right now so I just use my mobile, and it wasn't charged at the time."

"The ridiculous coincidences that fate sometimes throws together, eh?" Shizuru chuckled a touch ruefully. "Go on then, get yourself back to your little phone-less apartment. I'll call you in the morning."

"_You'll_ call…?" said Mai hesitantly.

"Oh now, don't misunderstand," Shizuru argued with a smirk. "I'm not so low as to abuse my working privileges for such an ends." Mai gave her the same confused, sceptical look as all the hospital staff and she couldn't help laughing out loud.

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Later the following morning, or more precisely _late_ the following morning, somewhere near eleven, Shizuru found herself back at work with no time to spare. The Director had an important meeting to attend to with one of her higher-ups and she would be loathe to miss out on such an opportunity to prove just what a good job she was doing of running her department. It wasn't as if the hospital didn't need a few more talented managerial staff to replace all the 'doddering old creeps' as Motoko had so delicately put it once or twice.

She was just saying something about the department budget and Motoko herself, in fact, when Shizuru felt the familiar sensation of movement inside her bag. It felt like a small, angry ferret struggling to escape. Well, at least she thought so.

"Er, excuse me, Sir," she interrupted, holding up one hand. With the other she reached into the bag and extracted a small, slender black cell-phone and held it up where she could see the small screen.

She blinked.

"Is there anything wrong, Fujino-san?"

Shizuru shook her head, a tad flustered all of a sudden but she kept her calm and cheerful composure as always. "No, of course not! Nothing wrong at all, but I'm afraid I absolutely _must_ take this call." She rose from her seat before the balding middle-aged man sitting behind his desk could protest and swept out of the office, pausing only to wave back at him in passing.

The phone buzzed again in her hand and she glared down at it. "Have a little patience, already!" She pressed a button and held the thing up to her head.

"Hello?"

"Ah, Fujino-san?"

"Yes, how can I help? Who _is_ this anyway?"

"Tokiha-"

"-Mai-san, yes, I remember now! I'm surprised I didn't recognise such a lovely voice as yours sooner."

"Heh… I'm told I sound different first thing on a morning."

"Well, what seems to be the problem, Mai?"

There was a momentary pause on the line, filled with only soft static. Shizuru tapped her foot impatiently and rolled her eyes as some idiot with a half-filled kitchen cart nearly tripped over a power cord that was draped across one of the corridors. "Motoko, would you-"

"-Yes ma'am, right away," replied her assistant, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air right behind her. Away went the young girl, berating the first worker for not watching where he was going and then following intently along the length of that cord to its source…

"It's about Mikoto."

"Mikoto?" came Shizuru's response, more than a little puzzled.

"She says her name is Mikoto. She's here with me right now."

"Wait…you mean the patient you brought in last night?" Shizuru made a sharp turn down another corridor. No doubt Motoko would find her again before long wherever she went, she always did.

"Hm! She…well…kinda dropped by my apartment this morning."

Shizuru almost dropped the phone. "She came to your _house_? How did she..." She spotted the desk she had been searching for, a crescent-shaped affair not too large covered with endless piles of papers, standing lost in the centre of a wide open room. At one end of the room, predictably, was a wide set of swinging doors that led straight to the foyer, and on all sides were corridors off to room after room full of patient beds.

"I don't know how she got here," Mai continued when the pause stretched on slightly too long. "When I woke up a while ago she was just sort of…lying on my breakfast table."

"Tell me all you can. How is she doing?" Shizuru held her hand over the mouthpiece and whistled at one of the desk staff. "Koji!" The young blonde-haired boy, barely into his teens yet by the look of him, swivelled in his chair to look back up at the older woman standing menacingly over his desk. Before he could speak, Shizuru snapped out at him, "Get me the details for that patient they brought in last night, the unidentified."

He nodded and started raking through one of the many books laid out on the desk-space. "It'll just take a moment, Fujino-san," he said in mildly accented Japanese. "But I _think_ she's already gone."

"She?"

Koji nodded, again. "It was a girl. Pretty young girl, too, not much older than me."

"Don't get any ideas now, Koji, dear," teased Shizuru with a grin.

"Har har. Wait!" He pulled a thick black book out of the chaos on his desk and flipped it open. "Here we go… "unnamed young female, short, dark hair, yellow eyes…""

"Yellow?"

Koji shrugged. ""..Yellow eyes, rather pale, looked underfed. Patient suffering from mild dehydration and severe blood loss, penetrating wound to the abdomen." Went in to surgery just as you were leaving, Fujino-san. "Patient transferred to recovery ward at eight hundred hours twenty-fifth…" That's this morning, isn't it?"

"It's the twenty-sixth," corrected Shizuru and immediately turned on her heel to leave.

"Bloody useless book-keepers, I swear, do nothing but…" and so on went Koji, muttering to himself thankfully in English so as to not bother anyone with all that cursing.

"…and she seems to like my cooking," Mai was saying. Shizuru tried to back-track. Something about yellow eyes; a green hospital robe; noodles; a fondness for pillows; broken window.

"Thank you, Tokiha-san, that will be more than enough. Yes, those are her real eyes, and no, it's not one of ours. She was wearing some big green thing when they took her through to theatre." She snapped her fingers. "Ah, and we apparently still have that towel that came with her, that's not yours is it?"

"Don't worry," Mai chuckled. "I can buy a new one anyway. I'm just glad Mikoto's okay, to be honest."

"Yes, well, having someone appear on your doorstep and then bleed to death on you would certainly be rather traumatising."

"She seems like a very nice girl, too. I'd hate to see her in trouble like that again any time soon."

"I've solved the problem, ma'am," came Motoko's voice somewhere behind her left elbow. Shizuru fought down the nervous jerk and, therefore, did _not _elbow Motoko in the face.

"Thank you, Moko-chan. Now get back to my office and find my-"

The younger woman held up a small, rectangular metallic object about the size of an average paperback novel, with a wide screen covering the front side. "Your PDA, ma'am?" she asked sarcastically.

"What _would_ I do without you, Moko-chan?" Shizuru giggled girlishly and swiped the device from her assistant.

"Probably stop calling me 'Moko-chan' at least," muttered the girl bitterly. Shizuru heard, but failed to respond as always.

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On the other end of the conversation, Mai was sitting at her afore-mentioned table, watching her new house guest stuffing her face with practically everything left in Mai's fridge. At first she had cooked up a simple bowl of ramen, which Mikoto had called delicious, and then she had supplied bacon sandwiches, since that was the only thing she could think of. Mikoto had eaten that too and called it 'incredible'. She had also demanded more. Mai had cooked and cooked the whole morning, unable to resist those adorably helpless yellow eyes peering up at her like a hungry, homeless puppy, and now Mikoto was seated in front of at least five separate dishes, eating by hand, stuffing more and more food into her mouth by the second. It was a slightly messy activity, but Mai felt somehow incapable of getting angry. Considering, perhaps, that this poor young girl may not have eaten for days now.

"They let her go?" she said suddenly, blinking in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well apparently," said the voice on her phone, "there's been an order from upstairs that Mikoto is free to leave the hospital as of this morning. In fact, they've officially deemed you as her guardian."

"But that's…" Mai flailed for words.

"Well it's not legally binding, for one, since we're not the police. I just don't get it…"

"Seems awfully suspicious."

Shizuru grinned, and Mai didn't have to see her face to know it. "You seem to think a lot like myself, Tokiha-san. I do certainly think this situation requires a little investigation."

"I can't ask you to do anything that might be unethical. And I certainly wouldn't ask you to disobey your superiors…"

"Nobody said that the decision was not open to inquiry. It's my right, and my duty, to know just why one of _my_ patients was cleared the same morning she came in with a puncture wound to the stomach."

Mai frowned. "I'm sorry, I have to go now. Someone wants more breakfast."

Mikoto grinned up at her innocently and held out the empty bowl. Shizuru just laughed softly in her ear. "Good look, Tokiha-san. I hope she puts you off having children, because believe me, they're much, much worse."

"What a cheerful person you are."

Mai pressed a button and got a satisfying blip as the connection cut out.

"Mai!" chirped her house-guest. "Mai's food is the best!"

"If you want more, I have to go shopping." She gestured to the kitchen, which looked something of a mess now. "You ate pretty much everything I had left."

Mikoto rubbed the back of her head and grinned helplessly.

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Not so far from Mai's apartment building, something else far more interesting was happening. In an even more over-crowded and miserable area of the city, dark and damp and cold, a rather disreputable bar was huddled away into a corner in a back alley, built into the back of a much larger building. It was inconspicuous at the least, and the whole place was underground, accessible only via a rusted metal staircase down from ground level. There was no real sign, just a neon light over an otherwise ordinary door; an emergency exit sign in Japanese with the running green figure repainted a dull red.

Inside was just as bad. The bar was a single, cramped room, with not much space for more than a few tables arranged on the outside wall and the bar itself along the opposite side. As was most common, the wall behind the bar was mostly mirror, obscured by rack after rack of bottles, most of them half-empty. There was little light, and what little there was was a fuzzy orange glow from a few worn-out light bulbs dangling overhead from random points on the ceiling. Even the ceiling itself was in bad shape, shattered, broken, chipped foam tiles peeling away from an ugly grey concrete backing.

The bartender was not a particularly tall man, or particularly handsome. He was also not particularly unsightly, or fat, or thin, or anything else that might make him easily distinguishable. He was plain and of average height, average dark hair and eyes and a normal, slightly rounded face, clean shaven. His eyes were rolling about from one side to the other, between the glass in his hands that he was at that moment rubbing dry, and the small booth on the opposite wall of the bar where something, no doubt rather exciting, was happening without him. He tried not to look upset, though he did keep reminding himself that if something _bad_ happened then he would probably be to blame.

The rather exciting thing that was happening over in that booth was a conversation, a hushed conversation. Of, only one of the participants was readily visible at that moment, the other hanging back in the thick shadow beside the booth. They sat, or stood, respectively, back-to-back with one another as they spoke.

"So," said the girl, setting her glass down on the table again. "You know where she is right now, I presume?" She stirred her drink with the little yellow plastic cocktail stick, a bored expression on her youthful face.

"Not right now," replied a deep, gruff voice with a hint of an accent. "I know where she _was_ though. And I can even tell you…for a fee."

"Well I wouldn't expect any less," said the girl with a smirk. "I knew I could find someone reliable in a place like this."

"In every society, there are countless eyes and ears. Some of them pay attention." The shadow shifted. "And those who do often profit from those who do not."

The girl set her face into a tight, hard expression again. "How profound. I'm sure I'll remember those words." She sighed and sipped at the remains of the clear liquid in her glass. "So how much?"

"Straight to the point, are we?" chuckled the shadow.

"I like to be efficient."

"There's an envelope on the table in front of you."

She looked down. Sure enough, there was indeed a small white envelope sitting on the table, almost hidden beneath two empty bottles. She pushed them aside and plucked it by a corner between her fingertips. "Yes?"

"Eight thousand."

"Six," the girl replied sharply. "No more."

"Sixty-two hundred is the lowest I'll go."

She paused for a while, as if she were honestly pondering it over. She turned that envelope over and over in her hands. The shadow remained silent.

Eventually, she smirked again. "Fine. Sixty-five, because I like the way you deal."

"That makes two of us. There's an ATM outside, around the corner from here. Bring back the money and give it to the bartender. _Then_ you'll get your information."

"Pretty big incentive, then. What if I don't come back?"

"I don't lose anything, and you don't get your information. It's a completely neutral situation."

She laughed out loud at that. "I _do_ like the way you deal. I'll be right back, then. With your money." She slid the envelope into her jacket pocket and stood up slowly. Her entire body from the neck down shimmered darkly, as if she were coated in metal. Her thick grey boots thumped against the bare floor. Her hair flowed out behind her like a wave, a mass of black silk ribbons that trailed behind her all the way down to her rear. She shoved the door open with one grey, gloved hand and disappeared without so much as a backward glance.

After a few moments, the shadow behind the booth moved again. "You think she'll do it?"

"Course not," replied the bartender without looking up from his glass-drying. "If she was going to, she'd have done it last time. She's just not the type."

"I hope you're right, or we might have a lot of explaining to do."

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In that same major vicinity not so many hours later, with the bright afternoon sun on her back, an energetic young girl was hopping along the street with a smile on her face and two bulging plastic bags hanging from each hand, her fiery orange hair shifting in the breeze.

Completely unaware of the general deviousness going on in some nearby bar, Mai was dashing home again, this time sans umbrella and coat with just a loose brown jacket to keep her clothes from harm and to ward off the slight chilling breeze. So it was that, without the rain urging her on, she felt herself dropping into a more relaxed step as she neared the apartment building. Her shoes tapped out noisily still on the paving beneath and her breath had not quite caught up, still half-panting from the short sprint down the street. She hopped up the steps one at a time for a change, trying her best not to notice how her chest jostled up and down wildly with her carryings-on.

"It really is such a nice day today, though," she thought to herself aloud as she stopped in front of her apartment door and fished through her pocket for the key. "I wonder…"

"Meow."

Mai blinked. She turned her head, very slowly.

Sitting on the floor by her foot, looking patiently up at her, was a small black cat. A fairly young cat, presumably, but still quite stocky despite its diminutive stature.

"Well…er…hello there," said Mai.

"Meow," said the cat, and head-butted her ankle. "Meow."

"But," argued Mai a little hopelessly as she unlocked the door, "I don't own a…cat?"

Inside the apartment was another cat. This one was quite large, and white, and lay in the middle of the floor half-asleep. A third cat sat beside it, a ginger cat, who seemed to be completely absorbed in the act of watching Mikoto balance a chopstick on the end of her nose.

"Mikoto," said Mai hesitantly. "Why are there cats in my apartment?"

Mikoto waved cheerfully. "Hi, Mai!"

Mai slipped her shoes off, in which time the black cat slid its way through her legs and into the apartment, and then closed the door behind her. "Mikoto," she repeated, a little more firmly. "Why…are there cats…in my apartment?"

Mikoto shrugged at her. "I think they like me." She stood up slowly and stretched out until her fingers almost touched the ceiling.

Goodness, but did the girl ever stretch. She might have been a small, wiry thing to look at but she certainly had the flexibility. Her body must have been made of elastic or something, Mai had found herself wondering on more than one occasion.

Mai paused by the door and took another long look over her impromptu roommate; she was indeed quite the skinny thing, even for a girl so young, and her tendency to wear things that were far too large for her made her look all the more diminutive. Her hair was raggedly cut about her head, short and thick, a messy assortment of black spikes. Down each side of her face was a thin twisted coil of hair, tied off neatly just below the edge of her jaw. The whole affair seemed to emphasise those glaringly bright yellow eyes even more so.

Mikoto pivoted on one foot, leaning over so far that she looked about to pitch right over onto her face at any second as she turned to face the older girl. "You brought food?" she asked innocently.

Mai chuckled. "Lots of food, Mikoto-chan. I hope you like it all."

"Mai's food is the best!" insisted Mikoto with a beaming grin. "I can eat anything you cook!"

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Thick grey boots thumped against the smooth, polished laminate floor, leaving a trail of ugly, wet black footprints behind. Motoko frowned at one such footprint, not inches from her office door. Then she lifted her head and frowned mercilessly at the person who had caused them. "And you would be?" she asked in a very annoyed tone of voice.

"Kuga," said the girl, who was almost a full head taller than Motoko. Then again, so was just about everyone else. She turned to face the irate secretary and Motoko almost rolled her eyes.

She was not all that tall, just quite a bit taller than Motoko herself, as was often the case. She was lean and fit and very much well built, as was blatantly obvious underneath the skin-tight leather suit she wore, a gleaming, polished jet-black one-piece with coordinated patches of burgundy and a deep metallic grey. Thick, padded grey gloves encased her hands, matching grey boots enveloped her feet up past the ankles and a jacket that would have otherwise been indecently short hung from her shoulder, only barely reaching past the bottom of her chest, left open to show off a decent amount of bulge under the leather over her chest.

"You would be Kuga-san, apparently," Motoko said flatly, still considerably more annoyed than she had been. "Well then, I'll just go get the red carpet…"

"I'm here to see Shizuru."

Motoko paused. Few people she knew called the Director by her first name so casually. "Director Fujino isn't here at the moment. You'll have to-"

"-I'll wait in her office," said the dark-haired girl as she nonchalantly pushed past Motoko.

"…wait in her office. Bitch." Motoko sighed to herself as she watched the door to Shizuru's office swinging shut with a click. "I better be getting overtime for this."

Inside Shizuru's office, predictably, was a nice neat desk, a rather large desk, in fact, for a relatively rather small office. Tall and wide and deep, stained wood, a deep auburn tone that blended into darker reddish bands along the grain. Atop the desk sat a potted plant, some breed of lily by the look of it, though it had yet to flower. There were several stacks of papers, but standing out from it all, in the very centre of the desk right where it was most accessible, was that slender grey notebook. Natsuki almost smirked at it.

She winced when the leather chair squeaked loudly against her leather suit, but that frustrating secretary did not make an appearance. The notebook folded open with a soft click and started humming. "Left it on again," Natsuki chuckled to herself. "How careless of her." The same old password got her in, and the layout looked oh so familiar. It was all going atrociously smoothly.

When Shizuru finally returned some ten or fifteen minutes later, Motoko was typing furiously away, literally, at her own workstation on her desk. She did not bother getting up to greet her superior, or even look up from her work. "Welcome back, ma'am," she grunted. "There's something in your office."

Shizuru frowned at the slight stress on 'some_thing_'. She was about to check when her office door opened and…

…out walked Kuga Natsuki, as lovely as ever. Shizuru was grinning from ear to ear before she knew it, just seeing that familiar body in such tight, revealing clothing. "Nice to see you again, Natsuki. Especially after so long."

Natsuki walked past her without even looking at her. "I borrowed it again," she said simply. "I knew you wouldn't mind." With that, she was out the door and gone again.

Motoko grunted again. Shizuru turned to give her a playful look. "Oh, she's just in a huff because I dumped her years ago."

"I seem to remember it was the other-"

"-What was that about overtime, Moko-chan?"

The blonde woman cursed to herself and kept on typing.

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Mikoto belched. Loudly.

Mai made a face at her but she seemed not to care. "I think that's enough." The scrawny young girl tried to shake her head, but unfortunately she was still half-passed out over the breakfast table, chin on the table-top, a dopy smile over her face. Her stomach ached, but it was the good kind for sure.

"You must not have eaten in weeks, all the food you got down today."

"Mai's cooking is just so good," giggled Mikoto. She plucked another octopus ball from the dish on the table between finger and thumb and stared at it for a while. Eventually, her mouth opened wide and the crispy treat disappeared like a rabbit down a hole.

Mai sighed, rubbing wearily at her forehead. "I think I've cooked enough today for a whole army! I'm getting ramen for breakfast tomorrow and I don't care _how_ bad it tastes as long as I don't have to make it."

She stood up and brushed off the crumbs from her skirt with the back of one hand while gathering up the small stack of plates with the other. Then off she went back to the kitchen again to dump them all in a pile in the sink, to be forgotten until the next morning. Mikoto just lay half-on half-off the table making happy little gurgling noises and rolling her head side to side.

"I really should go easy on her though," Mai sighed to herself. "She's been injured pretty badly. She was so thin and weak when she got here, so I should just keep feeding her for now and make sure she gets better." She nodded. "Yeah, I can do it! It'll be just like…like…"

She looked down at the water running from the tap, almost mesmerised, with a distant look on her face. "Almost like…taking care of Takumi again…"

Before her self-doubt could go any further, there was a knock at the door. Mikoto being effectively incensed and all, Mai twisted the faucet off and dashed around the kitchen counter with an exasperated groan. "I'm coming, just a moment!"

There was not a second knock.

When Mai opened the door, there was no one there.

"Er…okay…" She looked to either side for a moment, then up, then down. She even stepped right outside and looked down over the edge of the concrete balcony, down to the bottom of the stairwell. Nobody there either. It was growing dark rather quickly and the light outside was therefore failing considerably, but Mai knew her eyes were good enough to catch a person out of the weak shadows outside her apartment.

"Hello?" she shouted out down the stairway. "Is anyone there?"

Ka-click.

Mai froze. Something hard and cold was pressing against the back of her head just above the base of her skull. It felt unnervingly like a gun, but then that might have simply been Mai's brain overreacting.

"To-ki-ha-Mai," said a slightly dusky feminine voice.

"Who are you?" Mai growled, or at least tried.

"Tokiha Mai should be more cautious in future. People could take advantage of such a generous, trusting girl."

Mai snorted. "Whoever you are, you sound awfully arrogant."

The gun, or whatever it was, prodded roughly against her head. "Tokiha Mai should learn to keep her comments to herself," hissed the voice.

"Kuga Natsuki should watch her back!"

Mai blinked. "Miko-"

The rest was cut off. All at once, Natsuki swept herself down and back, rolling backwards across the concrete and through the doorway into Mai's apartment. At the very same time, Mikoto came hurtling through the doorway not inches above her, an enormous black sword raised over her head and a furious look on her face. Mai had only enough time to dive to one side as that colossal blade came scything down and cleaved the metal railing clean through, wedging itself deep into the concrete floor of the balcony.

Suddenly, Mikoto was leaning over the railing in Mai's place and her opponent was behind her, her own weapon levelled at the young girl's back.

"And _you_ should try a more focused attack next time." Mai watched, somewhat stunned, as the raven-haired girl held out her free hand to one side. There was a sudden flash of light, and what looked like a handgun of some kind appeared millimetres from her palm with a strange sort of popping noise; short and fat and square-ish, in shimmering black metal. She grabbed it neatly in those long, slender fingers and aimed it down towards Mai. "And Tokiha Mai should stay put."

"Kuga Natsuki really should check out who she's dealing with before being so brash," Mai shot back with a smirk. Natsuki only had time to utter 'Na-' before a thin lance of flame snapped across the distance from Mai's fingertips to herself and knocked one gun sharply out of her hand. She recoiled at once, clutching that hand close against her chest with a wince.

Mikoto took that as a signal, apparently, and back-flipped up into the air towards her enemy, bringing her sword sweeping behind her in a wide vertical arc.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not, the end of the blade struck the concrete wall just above the apartment door and jammed in, pivoting Mikoto about that point so she struck head-first right into Natsuki's stomach. Down went both girls into a rather messy heap. Mikoto's sword soon after dropped out of its notch in the wall, bounced on its handle on the floor and toppled over, whacking Mikoto soundly across the forehead.

"Hey, get off me, damn it!"

Mai took a moment to look at the chaos and sighed. Then she snickered. Then she giggled…

…and then she burst right out laughing. Natsuki yelling at her angrily only made it worse.

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Mikoto groaned pathetically and rubbed at her forehead again.

"So, Tokiha Mai is one of us," Natsuki reiterated. She sipped at the tea presented her and had to fight not to show her approval. It was _damn_ good tea.

"One of you?" Mai looked at Mikoto, then at her new house-guest, with a bewildered expression. "You mean then, that the two of you are Himes too?"

Natsuki nodded sagely. "We both went to that stupid academy, and so did you, it would seem. Each one of us is a Hime."

"I didn't know she was…" Mai gave Mikoto a worried look. "If I had known… It certainly explains why she's back out of hospital so fast though." She growled at Natsuki. "But that doesn't explain why you were trying to kill her! Did _you_ give her that wound?"

"I wasn't trying to kill her," barked Natsuki with a snarl. "I have to take her back to Fuuka Gakuen. She'll be safer there."

"I don't wanna be safe! I want Mai's cooking!"

Mai laughed out loud and Natsuki ground her teeth together. "I think Mikoto-chan would much rather stay here, wouldn't you?"

"I don't wanna go back to that place," said Mikoto impudently. "It's bad there. Feels all wrong."

"Define wrong," replied Natsuki with a growl.

"I dunno, just…something strange about it."

Natsuki remained quiet for a few moments, eyes closed in thought as she sipped her tea. Mikoto pouted childishly, which she seemed to be rather good at, and Mai just shook her head and sighed again.

"If you're a Hime like us," said Natsuki at last, "then she'd at least be better off in your company."

Mai grinned. "I've defeated all sorts of terrors in my days, anything that menaced the sacred academy grounds." She chuckled self-consciously at that. "Midori-chan did seem so enthusiastic about it."

"Midori-sensei was a Hime too?" Natsuki looked a little worried when Mai nodded in reply. "There were so many more than we knew about then, it seems. Maybe I _should_ tell Shizuru…"

Mai blinked. "Wait… Fujino-san? Fujino Shizuru, the student council President?"

"What about her?"

"What about her?" yelled Mai excitedly. "She's the director at-"

"-Tokyo Twelfth District Public Hospital," Natsuki finished. "I know. She told me where you lived." Then she slammed her fist down on Mai's table. "That bitch! She _knew_ you were one of us and she didn't tell me! Making me look like a fool again, how childish of her."

"You two…know each other, I presume?"

Natsuki blushed. "Er, well…we go back. A long way."

Mai gasped theatrically. "Shock! A female student has a tempestuous affair with the famous President Fujino!"

"Shut up, damn it!"

Mikoto watched on, completely baffled, while Mai laughed herself back into her seat and Natsuki berated her, loudly, for being so 'vulgar'. "What's "affair"?" she pondered out loud.

"Eh?" Mai grinned even wider. "Well, when a sexually confused schoolgirl falls in love with…"

"Now just a minute, damn you! Who're you calling sexually confused?"

"Well at least _some_ of us know which way we swing."

Natsuki shot a sly look at Mikoto. "I see. That explains why you let her stay then, hm?"

Mai turned bright red and tried not to look like she was looking at that skin-tight leather suit...

"Hypocrite!"

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Eventually, the situation calmed itself down. Or rather, Natsuki and Mai slagged each other off until they both ran out of insults and then came to a resigned sort of truce. Mikoto sat and watched, amused at times, completely confused at others, but mostly not really interested enough in the exchange to let it interrupt her eating to such a degree.

Finally, Natsuki swept out of the door like a gust of cold wind and vanished into the night, with only a brief look over her shoulder as she left. Mai ran out to the street-side after her.

"So does this mean you'll be keeping an eye on us, hm?"

Natsuki straddled the sleek, dark mass of her bike with a practiced ease and plucked the helmet from where it hung by the strap from the handlebar. "You might see me around, if something bad happens."

Mai grinned. "Oh if I'm lucky, I'll be seeing the back of you a _lot_ from now on." She chuckled at the blush that brought up and leaned back on a wall to watch Natsuki peeling away into the street. Okay, perhaps she shouldn't be saying such things. People would get the wrong idea. 'People' being Mikoto, mainly.

"But," Mai whined, "She's just such fun to tease!"

"Mai!" yelled a voice from behind her. She turned to see Mikoto on the balcony, waving an empty bowl over her head. "Come back and cook more, Mai!"

"What _am_ I getting myself into here?"


	2. Chapter 2 : Congregation

The next morning, Natsuki woke in a strange bed. Well, not exactly strange, just not her own. She certainly recognised it, however; recognised the soft satin sheets in deep, cherry pink, and the soft reddish décor of the entire bedroom from top to bottom. The familiar low table that sat beside the head of the bed, even, and the heavy hardwood door, painted to match the frame, with polished brass handle.

She lay on her back, as was usual, in a rather suggestive pose with one hand laid across her forehead and one knee bent, leg cocked to the side in a most evocative manner. She had apparently kicked off the thin red sheets during her short sleep, as they lay bunched up on the floor in a messy heap, and now she was bare to the world as it were. A slight chill shivered through her as the softest of breezes played across her naked skin.

All of a sudden, the door creaked slowly open and part of a head peeked through. Natsuki hurled a pillow at it, screeching sharply and grasping for some kind of cover.

"Feeling a little shy this morning, love?" Shizuru's familiar mellow 'morning voice' murmured through the still-open door with a soft chuckle. When the door opened a second time, Natsuki failed to protest beyond merely turning her head in a gesture of disregard towards the tall older woman who entered and pulled the sheet that was still half on the floor tighter up against her chest in an attempt to cover her nudity.

Shizuru was, unsurprisingly, almost as naked as she, clad only in a long and very thin pink robe with soft red puffs around the edges. It was as thin and light as to be almost translucent, silk no doubt, and it was deliberately left hanging open in front as to show off everything from the inner edges of those generously curved thighs, right up to the brown-haired woman's throat. Somehow, only the very edge of a nipple was readily visible peeking out from behind the material, even as she moved, though anything down below was boldly open to observation. Clasped in both hands and held up against her stomach, as if to emphasise her breasts just above even further, was a small silver tray arrayed with a simple clay tea set and two large, filled, steaming bowls. She smiled warmly and set the tray on that low table beside the bed before leaning right down to kiss Natsuki's cheek.

Natsuki blushed deeply as the robe fell completely open right before her eyes, but said nothing. Her eyes slid down to her lap and stayed there as an expression of minor discomfort steadily coalesced upon her face.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Shizuru stood up straight again, pointedly failing to fasten her robe which now fell to either side of her modestly large bust. "What do you mean?" she asked, a deep feeling of worry starting to build within her.

"Tokiha Mai," said Natsuki with something of a hiss, though repressed. "Tokiha Mai is a Hime. And now she's sheltering that…"

"Mikoto," Shizuru supplied when it became obvious the younger woman was not prepared to say the name herself. "And yes, you're right. I didn't tell you." She sighed deeply. "I knew, and I didn't tell you."

Natsuki looked irritable, though her voice gave nothing away. "Why not? Can't you trust me?"

Shizuru winced inwardly. "Mikoto was injured, severely. Her survival was my responsibility, as the department director. I have to have a confidential relationship with the patients, just like any doctor or nurse below me." She paused, looking down at the dark-haired girl hesitantly. "Wait…you tried to kill her, didn't you?"

"No!" Natsuki barked, just a little sharper than she had intended, and Shizuru jumped back slightly. She bit her anger back down with a slow breath. "I did exactly as you said, I pursued her. I tried to get her to go back to Fuuka where she'd be safe."

"And you might just possibly have caused her serious bodily injury in the process…"

Natsuki bristled. "…I might have had a little trouble restraining myself during a fight. But I know it wasn't me who gave her that stomach wound."

Shizuru smiled ruefully, shaking her head and holding her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "I guess you're just a feisty kind of girl, when it comes down to it. Not that that's necessarily a _bad_ thing, in the right context."

Instead of blushing as usual, Natsuki turned her head and stared down at the bed-sheets so intensely that it might not have been so surprising had they burst into flames. Shizuru winced again, physically this time.

"What's wrong, Natsuki?"

"I shouldn't have," said Natsuki slowly. "I shouldn't have used it without your permission. I'm sorry."

Shizuru shook her head with an indulgent giggle. "Nonsense. You know I don't mind…Natsuki?"

"I should go," said the younger girl, shifting herself out of bed, away from Shizuru. A hand briefly rested on her shoulder but she shrugged it off.

"Natsuki…"

"I," interjected the dark-haired woman in a hushed tone. "I need to go. It was…nice meeting you again…Fujino-san."

Shizuru let her arm fall by her side and watched that naked back as Natsuki plucked her riding suit from its resting place folded across the back of one of the wooden chairs, arranged neatly around the breakfast table. She watched, silently, while the lavender-haired girl stepped into the thick boots, sleek black material caressing its way leisurely up that toned young body until all from her throat downward was completely obscured. The gloves went on last and Natsuki stood there for a short while, seeming lost in thought over something.

"I should probably investigate further," she retorted, in a subdued tone. Then she left, without another word, and all the older woman could do was to sigh wistfully as she watched her sliding out of the open doorway.

Once her lover had disappeared, Shizuru poured herself a fresh cup of tea, sipped, and tried to make herself stop feeling so depressed. "It's just a phase, really," she said for the nth time to the empty bedroom. "I just did something that upset her, that's all. I'm sure I'll have it fixed again in no time."

The small grey rectangle sitting on her bedside table started making an obnoxious bleeping noise at her. She sighed. "Duty calls once more."

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Mikoto rubbed her cheek into her pillow again and sighed contentedly, squeezing her arms round the pillow's generous mid-section. It was definitely her favourite pillow ever, this one; so warm and soft and spongy, it just cried out to have her head resting over it. Although, on occasion, if she left her head on it for too long it might misshape and she'd end up her head sandwiched between two thick mounds, which of course, wasn't all that bad barring the way her chin would then be resting on a much stiffer surface underneath.

"Mikoto," Mai whined from somewhere above her, her voice resonating through Mikoto's head. "I have to go to work."

The young girl squeezed tighter around Mai's waist and shook her head slowly, trying not to disturb her state of half-sleep. "Nuh…stay…" she remonstrated in a semi-conscious mumble.

Mai groaned, trying to work the light red colouring out of her cheeks, which was much more difficult when a young girl was nuzzling into her chest like that. "If you don't let me up, I can't make breakfast."

Mikoto narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and pouted. "But…" she began, then trailed off. Breakfast…pillow…some decisions should never have to be made. Mai interrupted her young roommate's train of thought by prying the clinging girl off herself, and wriggled her way lethargically out of bed. Mikoto kneeled up on the bed, still half-asleep by the look of her, and watched the older girl sliding the bedroom door open.

Mai did indeed end up cooking breakfast yet again, sadly only two bowls of ramen, but let it not be said that Mai's ramen were not better than even the finest gourmet cuisine (according to some). Mikoto practically inhaled her bowlful, and Mai was once more baffled by the young girl's sheer appetite.

"So," she began a little hesitantly. "…was it as good as the last one?"

Mikoto nodded so hard that Mai thought the poor girl's head might fall off. "Mai's cooking is the best!" she announced with an enormous grin.

"Well I'm going to work early today, so I can buy more food and cook more for you." She poked Mikoto's narrow mid-section with a finger, eliciting a yelp. "And on Tuesday, I have to go see someone about getting you into school."

Mikoto whined loudly. "Why do I have to go to school?"

"Because you're a young girl and you need an education if…" Mai paused. "Because shut up! You're going to school whether you like it or not!"

"No! I wanna stay here with you!"

"If you want to stay here with me, you'll have to work for money, so you need educating! So you're going to school!" Mai set her empty bowl firmly down on the table with a resolved nod. "And that's that."

"Couldn't you just get a better job?"

Both girls turned toward the doorway. Natsuki stood in the open apartment door, leaning casually against the wooden frame with her arms crossed over her chest, her leather gleaming in the morning sun. She looked frightfully alert and awake for such an early hour, vibrant almost, slivers of almost blue-ish purple flashing in her hair under the growing sunlight. Her dull blue-green eyes peered across the room at the redhead with contempt, amused contempt at that.

Mai frowned at her. "You stay out of this!"

Natsuki turned her nose up at the redhead. "I bet you failed all your qualifications, didn't you?"

"Shut up!" bit back Mai. "I have my own reasons for what I do and I don't need to explain them to you."

Mikoto made a most adorably pathetic face and pointed at herself inquisitively. Mai found her resolve crumbling against such onslaught faster than she had expected. "No, Mikoto, I won't tell _her_. But if you really want to know…"

The young girl shook her head. "Mmm… Mai is Mai and that's good enough."

Natsuki chuckled. That got her _two_ dirty looks. Mai crossed her arms under her chest, because over would have been a little difficult given her stature, and assumed a 'disgruntled mother' sort of atmosphere. "And what are _you_ laughing at?"

"You two are both as bad as each other."

"Funny," replied Mai, a mischievous smirk about her face. "I seem to recall saying the exact same thing about you two not so long ago."

Natsuki didn't respond, but her smile persisted.

"So…just why am I getting a visit from the sexual deviance fairy early in the morning?"

Natsuki glared at her and blushed at the same time, which gave quite the interesting overall effect. "I came to check up on you."

"Moi?" Mai held a hand to her chest demurely, failing to cover even half of her bust, which was mainly the point.

"Both of you," corrected the dark-haired girl, pointedly not staring at where Mai's pale pink pyjamas were left unbuttoned and folded open over her cleavage, and fuming mentally. "I did say I'd be dropping by to make sure Mikoto's okay, didn't I?"

Mikoto started pouting, but Mai interrupted with a joyful little squeal. "Hear that, Mikoto-chan? She was just so worried about you she had to come see you straight away."

Natsuki groaned and buried her face in one palm.

"Natsuki-papa wants her morning tea, hm?" Mai dashed off to the kitchen with a grin before anything else could be said to make more tea, leaving a _very_ awkward silence in her wake. Mikoto and Natsuki stared at each other wide-eyed.

Mai set the pot down on the table and patted the chair beside her, struggling between a rampant snicker and a look of disappointment. "Damn it, Kuga, you're no fun. Just come and sit down already."

Natsuki took her place at the table, reluctantly, and bowed her head when her own cup was presented. She sipped, slowly, and again had to suppress the urge to smile. Mai _was_ a shockingly good cook.

"Thanks," said the redhead, as if reading her mind, she smiled broadly. "Takumi always said I was the chef of the family so I took a few classes in college." She looked over at the scrawny young ramen-snorting machine across the table and her expression turned a little fonder. "It's nice to have people around to appreciate it, at the least."

Natsuki blushed ever so slightly. "Well…thank you. And you're welcome. I'd love to appreciate your cooking any time you need it."

Mai blushed back at her awkwardly for a moment. "You're not the cold-hearted angry bitch you seem at first, are you Kuga-san?"

"And you're certainly not the promiscuous lunatic I had you penned for, Tokiha-san," Natsuki shot back with a half-smirk.

"Please, you can just call me Mai."

Natsuki narrowed her eyes slightly. "Only if you never call me "papa" again."

"Awww, but it's just so adorable!"

Mikoto blinked confusedly and looked between the two as Natsuki rubbed her forehead and Mai giggled deviously.

"I guess Midori-sensei taught you a sense of humour too…"

For a second, Natsuki had the most overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. She shook the sensation from her head.

"How would you know, tall dark and mysterious?"

"I've been asking around," Natsuki lied smoothly. "Harada-san told me you were kind of a prude when you first met."

"Chie _would_ say that. I remember her and Aoi-chan having "cheesecake contests" all summer long." Two identical looks of bewilderment met her eyes. "See, they'd both wear swimsuits and just sort of lounge about by the swimming pool in the gym, and when a guy came by they'd both start making suggestive poses at him and judge who got the best reaction."

"How…vulgar."

Mai grinned a sinister grin. "They stopped when I started hitting on them both."

Natsuki turned red. Mai punched her firmly in the arm. "Midori-chan gave me the confidence to say things like that for my own gain! She did _not_ turn me into a lesbian!"

"What's a lesbian?"

Now Mai turned red, and Natsuki just buried her face in her hands again. "That's…a complicated question."

Mikoto looked at her expectantly, curiously, like a cat faced with an unexplained new toy.

"…" Mai's mouth hung open dumbly.

"There's an Orphan roaming around," mumbled Natsuki, effectively shattering the awkward silence like a dropped brick.

Mikoto bolted out of her seat at once, reaching for her sword where it rested against the wall behind her. Mai was on her feet seconds later, an excited expression written across her face. Her eyes lit up like fire and her body seemed at once more animated as she turned to where Natsuki still sat next to her.

"Finally! I thought the damned thing would never show up!"

"Wait…" Natsuki blinked up at her. "You knew?"

"I knew there was an Orphan somewhere around this place, in this district. I've been waiting for it to show itself."

Natsuki looked around for a moment at the apartment itself, a knowing expression crossing her features. "So…that's why you live like this, hm? Why you only have a part-time job and live in a place with such low rent…"

Mai rubbed a hand against the back of her head awkwardly. "Midori-chan really hammered that stuff into my head. A Hime's job is to defend others, and to destroy the Orphans or anything else like that."

"Midori-sensei really rubbed off on you, didn't she?"

There was a moment of silence before Mai burst out laughing and Natsuki buried her face in her hands again, blushing furiously, in more ways than one. Mikoto looked baffled, shrugged, and went back to being a fifth wheel.

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It was a warm, sunny afternoon in Tokyo. The sky was somewhat overcast, but no rain threatened through the thick, fluffy white clouds gathered overhead. The bright summer sun beamed down through narrows gaps, inadvertently blinding one or two people who just happened to look up at the wrong moment. In one particular part of Tokyo, in a large park, in the middle of pretty much nowhere beside a long, winding paved pathway, was a long wooden bench. It was hedged in from behind by a thick line of young trees and bushes, which often shaded it from the torturous summer midday sun.

Sitting on the bench, one to either end, were two young men, or rather, two older schoolboys, neither one that far from adulthood by the looks of them. The one was a moderately tall and thin figure, short dirty-blonde hair and greenish eyes that were at that moment resting limply shut, his head dangling off the back of the bench. The other was the shorter of the two, but not by very much, and more muscular than his companion by a respectable margin. He sat hunched over a book that lay in his lap, chewing on the back end of a pencil, his thick, ragged-cut brown hair constantly shifting in the gentle breeze and irritating him no end.

All of a sudden, the brown-eyed, brown-haired, book-toting youth sat up straight.

"Hey, Kazuki?" he said, turning to the other boy.

"Hm?" replied his friend in a non-committal sort of grunt.

"Do you, er…" The first boy hesitated for a moment. "Do you…smell something?"

The blonde-haired boy raised his head and sniffed at the air. "Hey, y'know…" He frowned and looked around quickly. "Smells kinda like fish."

"Fishy, eh?"

"Minoru!" The blonde, Kazuki, gave his darker-haired companion a good solid punch on the arm. "I'm serious, here!"

"So am I! I mean…" The brown-haired boy gestured in a wide circle with one arm. "…do you see any fish vendors or anything like that around here?"

Kazuki looked at him cautiously for a few moments before replying, "What if they're hiding?"

Minoru slapped his forehead. "You're an idiot sometimes, Uwada-kun."

"Besides, it smells more like a rat." Minoru gave his friend a confused look as Kazuki struck a pose, one foot up on the bench, hand rubbing his chin. "Yes, definitely! A giant rat! A giant, _mutant_ rat!" Minoru chuckled cynically. "I smell a magical girl show!" proclaimed the blonde, pointing dramatically up into the sky and posing stylishly (he thought).

"You really are-"

Thump-thump.

Both boys froze.

There were now a most ornate pair of shoes, nay, boots even, balanced atop the back of the bench; a beautiful emerald-green they were, made of many interlocking plates, each one delicately edged with gold. They were thick-soled, thick all over in fact, and rather high up past their wearer's ankles. From the tops of those boots emerged a pair of slender, smooth-skinned feminine calves, toned to perfection. Atop them, about similarly flawless knee joints, were clasped a matching pair of green kneepads, borders etched out in gold just as with the boots. The most sumptuously sleek, muscular, milk-white thighs filled the gap from there up to a micro-length miniskirt so short it was simply indecent, in the same deep jade hue and gold highlights, only this time mostly fabric hanging from a narrow band of that armour-like plate. The top of the skirt dipped down between the wearer's broad, softly curved hips in a broad V-shape that pushed the suggestiveness of the outfit to its very limits. Gauntlet-clad hands, thick and padded, covered in the same narrow green-and-gold metallic plates as the rest, hung down beside those same hips. The rest of those magnificent arms were left bare right up to the shoulder, barring wrap-around pads on the elbows that matched the kneepads down below. The shoulders on that mysterious womanly figure were at once both slender and feminine, yet still powerfully muscular.

Above the obscenely short skirt, an abdominal region to match, firmly rounded musculature only hinted at vaguely beneath smooth, taught female skin. Above there even was a sort of vest-like apparatus in the same green-on-gold armour plates that only just obscured view of quite the prodigious bulging of bust. A deep, wide V-cut left far more cleavage than was strictly necessary open to the eye, from above _and_ from below, just a thin pinpoint of fabric holding the two sides of the garment together in front. There was a wide space between her shoulders where the top left most of her collar area and her upper chest naked to the world, bordered on each side by bulbous, rounded shoulder-pads.

A narrow emerald-green fabric strip was tied about her delicate throat into a neat bow at the front, finished off with more of that painstakingly careful filigree work. Her head was held high, chin up, with a look of prideful wrath upon her feminine face. Violet eye shadow swept out in a narrow triangular swatch from the outside corner of each eye, making those soft purple eyes look somehow narrower, more focused and sinister, more dangerous. Full, warm red lips pouted together in a narrow kiss, both alluring and treacherous. Mustard-yellow hair flowed back from the crest of her forehead and down the back of her neck to her shoulder blades, billowing out into a thick, lazily billowing wave of luxurious softness wafting in the breeze.

The nameless young woman clenched one glove-encased hand into a fist and rested it on her hip, while bringing the other hand up and out in front of her, pointing one finger decisively towards what appeared to be a completely empty patch of grass on the other side of the path. She took a deep breath inward, which action inadvertently caused her breasts to swell up against the inside of her top until it strained to contain them…

…instead of the woman spouting off dramatic monologue, something completely unexpected happened. A bright yellow flash of colour ignited the end of the armour-clad woman's outstretched forefinger and a thigh-thick beam of that same pale yellow light leapt forth at tremendous speed, striking some invisible barrier right about where that finger was pointing towards and bursting in a wide splash of yellow flame. There was a deafening noise, somewhere between a screech and a roar. The air where that beam had struck shimmered like a mirage, and out of the rippling, a gigantic serpentine creature gradually faded into view.

It was almost ten metres from head to tail, though that huge snaking tail did take up a fair portion of that length, and its limbs were similarly slender and snake-like. Its head sat on the end of a long, sleek neck, a blunt wedge shape with a sharply pointed snout from whence protruded two long, curved fangs each the size of an entire forearm. Its eyes, its narrow snout, its limbs and tail and the strangely lavender fur that covered from end to end spoke of some kind of rodent origin.

It turned its head to the armoured woman and shriek-hissed terribly, jaw wide open to show off rows of serrated fangs dripping saliva and a long, thin, pointed tongue.

The woman ignored it. Instead, she leapt up into the air with a swoosh, the action cutting a rather deep gouge into the back of the bench with those heavy boots. Her finger came stabbing down towards the creature as she fell again, a second blazing yellow beam erupting from the tip of that finger and sending the strange rat-like monster sprawling as it slammed straight into its narrow chest area.

At once, the huge tail was lashing round in a wide arc up towards the descending figure, the long spikes on its tip ready to rend through flesh and probably anything else that got in the way. Instead of being brutally impaled, the woman turned, in midair, and actually _sidestepped_ the oncoming tail, as if the empty air beneath her feet were a cohesive surface. As that tremendous limb whisked mere inches from her nose, she was already turning to bring her other hand to bear on the creature, firing off a whole volley of successive yellow bursts, from all five fingers, this time as thick globular segments. Each one struck with a satisfyingly loud double-bang, and wailing screams followed as smoke billowed from the creature's back and obscured most of its features.

Just when they thought the fight was all over, the two awe-stricken boys threw themselves back away from the huge monster, back behind the bench for cover as a flurry of razor-sharp white spines exploded upwards like a geyser. A jet of high-speed knives flew up towards the floating armoured woman, and even then, the injured creature on the ground was rolling to one side and looking skyward, watching for the effects of its unexpected attack. The mustard-haired woman seemed unconcerned…

Just as those flying blades were seconds from slicing her to pieces, several dozen tiny green-and-gold objects roughly conical in shape, no larger than a thumb each, appeared in a rough shell formation around her. They tracked on each and every incoming blade in less than the blink of an eye and, with a deafening series of rapid-fire cracks, wire-thin yellow beams lanced out and reduced the flying spikes to nothing more substantial than a small cloud of fine white dust.

Kazuki was impressed. Minoru boggled openly, wide-mouthed and wide-eyed. Neither said anything, or even moved from their makeshift hiding place.

The woman, thus protected from the deadly hail of spikes, flipped end-over-end so that she was facing headfirst down towards the beast below her and plummeted like a bullet, one arm stretched out in front of her, hand spread wide open and yellow sparks growing rapidly at the tip of each digit. When she collided with the monster, her hand exploded into a furious blinding yellow light-storm, accompanied by a thunderous triple-boom that shook the ground in the immediate vicinity like a minor earthquake.

When the smoke cleared, there was no sign of the creature but for a wide circular area where the grass had been blasted away and the earth beneath was scorched black, a softly glowing ring around it. The mysterious woman stood triumphantly in the very centre, arms crossed over her large chest. She looked to the two boys who had witnessed the event and, finally, spoke.

"Armitage has defeated her enemy once again!" she shouted inspirationally, her voice still as sweet and melodious as her appearance suggested, but also brazenly vigorous. "The innocent citizens of this city are safe!"

With that, she leapt into the air and disappeared.

"Kazuki," ventured the dark-haired boy after quite a while. "What the crap was that?"

"Er…" replied the blonde, gesturing wildly with his hands. "That was…she was…" His hands subconsciously made a wide cupping gesture as he spoke. "She…was…_really_ hot."

"Nobody's gonna believe this, you know."

For a short while, they stared at the softly steaming ground where the creature had been vanquished, and said nothing. Eventually, the blonde turned to his friend.

"I gotta know…how did she stay in that top?"

"Kazuki, I'm pretty sure _most_ of what she did was scientifically impossible."

"Yeah but…" The blonde made more of those cupping motions with his hands. "Priorities, man."

Minoru sighed, but smiled. "You're intolerable."

"On reflection, my second guess would have been far less confusing."

"Huh?" said the blonde, but asked anyway, "What was your second guess?"

"Giant mutant ninja tur-"

"-You _really_ need a girlfriend, Kazuki."

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There was a knock at the door. Shizuru glared at it for a moment or two.

"Come in," she sighed, dunking a small packet full of photographs into the top drawer of her desk. The key turned with a satisfying click.

"Ma'am, I thought I should remind you that your schedule today is far too full to spend your lunch break staring at your ex-girlfriend."

Shizuru blinked. "How did you…"

"It's my job to know what my boss is doing, ma'am." Motoko almost, _almost_ smirked.

"I should stay on my toes around you if that's the way it is." Shizuru shoved back her chair and stood slowly, brushing down her skirt with one hand. "Next thing I know, you'll have cameras in the changing rooms and I'll be done for sexual harassment."

"You should be done for sexual harassment anyway," muttered the younger woman under her breath. "Besides, where would I get the cameras?"

"You could always borrow a few of mine," replied Shizuru all too cheerfully.

Motoko simply frowned at her disapprovingly, which somehow was far more pleasing a result than anything else Shizuru had ever gotten. The blonde secretary disappeared back through the door again, leaving it wide open in the process.

"I would be hurrying, if I were you, ma'am," she called back over her shoulder. "Your appointment with the head of staff is in one hour."

The edge of Shizuru's mouth slowly turned up into a somewhat feline grin. "What's with the occasion, anyway?"

"Eh?" Motoko turned as her superior came striding out of the office. The older woman stopped and gave her secretary a rather vague gesture.

"You look so…fancy. Like you dressed up for something."

Motoko looked down at herself, at the exact same black-and-white suit combination she almost invariably wore to work. She looked back up at Shizuru with a dubious expression.

"Your tie! And your hair, too! You look so…" Shizuru blinked. "And are those your good shoes?"

The short woman sighed deeply. She was indeed dressed up, as far so as Motoko ever did. The blouse was the same nameless, brand-less white short-sleeved blouse as every other she wore, but around her collar was a neat black tie to match the rest of the suit that disappeared down under her buttoned jacket, with a narrow diamond motif etched in thin gold lines on the front. Her shoes were usually the obligatory black flat-soles, but for this one particular occasion, she wore what were definitely high-heels in the same jet black, with thin straps and narrow toes, and a small diamond-based pattern on the front of each that matched her tie. Her thick blonde hair was pinned back on the wrong side, which created a strange asymmetrical illusion to her face, and the bun in the back was missing for once, which left all of that golden mess to fall down over her shoulders in a single uniform wave.

She failed to blush when Shizuru leaned in closer. Instead, she coughed into her hand. "You should really get going, ma'am."

"Just as soon as you tell me why you're looking so fresh today."

"That doesn't concern you, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me…" With that, she sidled past the taller woman and into the vacated office, shutting the door behind her.

"I'll be back, Moko-chan! Just you don't get any finger marks on those photos!"

Sufficiently amused at her assistant's personal expense, as always, Shizuru set off with a pleasant smile down the corridor towards whatever awaited her. As per non-the-usual, however, she didn't get very far before the rather abnormal recent events caught up to her once again.

"You've got mail!" chirped the device in her bag in that obnoxiously jovial mechanical voice. She fished it out with a groan and checked the display…

Natsuki's name flashed up. How intriguing.

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The small restaurant _Cat's Paws_ was something a little different in the middle of a densely packed district of Tokyo. It sat between a hardware store to the left, with huge displays, blaring pictures and gaudy advertising, and a drab, square, grey-fronted building to the right that only few actually knew was a video store, sans any kind of façade. It was a rather small building itself, practically built into the buildings around it, only two storeys and barely enough space across the front for five whole panel windows. There was a sign that stood out front on the pavement that yelled out various "special offers" to passers-by, and a wide overhanging orange shade above the front wall with "Cat's Paws" in bright yellow.

Inside was just as bright and, some might say, just as lurid. The restaurant walls were a bright golden-yellow shade, the ceiling plain white, and the floor was of polished wood. There was a narrow bar in the far corner of the room, no stools, where drinks of all kinds were apparently on sale. The intervening space, from wall to wall all the way from the door to a small gap at the back wall in front of the kitchen doors, was a semi-disorganised collection of identical circular tables. Only along the front wall, sidled right up next to the full-length panel windows was an entire row of booths, wooden walls on either side with block seats and square, wooden tables. To fit the design better, the paving on the outside had been dug up in a narrow strip and a wide assortment of plants provided a half-decent cover from about chest height down.

The interior wasn't the only scenery, though. In typical commercial style, the restaurant had a full compliment of attractive young waitresses, all dressed in identical uniforms; narrow, strapless orange shoes, lace-trimmed ankle-socks, orange and white striped miniskirt, short-sleeved white button-up blouse, loud orange sleeveless jacket, and a rectangular nametag in both English and Japanese pinned on the left breast. Nobody knew for certain what colour the 'other' bits of the uniform really were, but there were plenty of rumours.

Mai brushed the back of her skirt down again as it rode dangerously high while she bent over to pick up a coffee jar from one table. The young boy, far too young in Mai's opinion, in the seat behind her made a disappointed face and turned back to his brother/friend. Mai tried her best to ignore it.

Her feet hurt. The shoes pinched terribly after several hours on the job and the three-inch-high heels knocked her centre of balance too far forward, which meant that when she had to bend over for anything she had to stick out her rear end in a most provocative manner. Well, at least it kept the skirt from riding too high…most of the time.

Suddenly, the door chimed to signal the advent of yet another new customer, and Mai turned to greet him or her, or them, in her best cheerful waitress voice.

"Good afternoon! How can…" She trailed off.

For a moment or two, Mai was actually dumbstruck by the sight before her. By the look of it, so were several of the other customers. Many pairs of eyes all fell upon the figure in the open doorway.

She was young, and vibrant, and she was utterly beautiful, and no one present could find the words to deny it however hard they tried. Her slender, dainty feet were trapped within narrow, pointed black high-heeled shoes and soft pink ankle-high socks. Her legs were the purest, milky white, smooth and almost unbelievably long, stretching on and on up to her skirt, generously muscular thighs disappearing under the not quite knee-length pleated brown garment. Above that, a plain white short-sleeved blouse covered her upper half, soft half-frills around each cuff and about her collar. The buttons down the front seemed to strain slightly as she took a deep breath in, her prodigious bust almost matching Mai's own for sheer mass. She was tall, or modestly so at least, and she was athletically built, her body smoothly muscled through gentle curves. Her bare arms looked just as firm and strong as the rest of her.

Her face was slightly rounded, somewhere between triangular and ovoid in just the right way, with a dainty pointed nose and soft, narrow red lips that pouted out as she looked around her. Her eyes were wide and bright, a deep lavender colour much like Mai's own, but thin accents in violet eye shadow made them look narrower and more sultry somehow. Her hair flowed like a thick velvet curtain down behind her to her shoulders, though it was a most peculiar mustard-yellow velvet.

Hovering immediately behind her was a second young woman, thought she looked far more mature than the first. Dark, attentive eyes looked almost greyish-black behind a pair of narrow silver-framed glasses. The mass of brownish red hair atop her head was short and thick, and reached only barely halfway down the back of her neck. It was mostly somewhat disorganised, as if she had simply shook her head and sprayed it in place, but she pulled it off stunningly. The rest of her slender, modestly-equipped body was tucked into a neat, dark brown business suit, conservatively cut in contrast to her far more revealing companion.

For a half a second, Mai felt a creeping sensation of déjà vu.

"Haruka-chan!" whined the brunette. Her face showed an anxious concern as she looked about the establishment.

The mustard-haired woman's own features were a deviously self-amused sort of expression one might expect from a happily scheming young girl. "Nonsense, Yukino!" she said, nowhere near quietly, waving one hand in a dismissive manner. "We have plenty of time for lunch. And besides, I'm hungry!"

"Haruka-chan, really. You have a meeting with-"

"-Oh, Yukino, just for this once can't you trust me? I promised I'd be there and I will."

The brunette sighed as she watched her partner walking, or more to the point, _sauntering_ over towards the nearest waitress, which happened to be a certain orange-haired young twenty-something.

"I just can't change Haruka-chan even if I tried," she conceded with the hint of a fond half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Good afternoon," said Mai firmly, bowing to the mustard-haired woman respectfully. "How can-"

"-We'll take a table for two, thank you," the woman demanded presumptuously. Her companion appeared millimetres behind her and peered over her shoulder at Mai.

"Just a quiet seat in the corner will do, if that's at all possible."

"No problem at all, miss!" replied the redhead cheerfully, smiling hard in spite of the faintly bizarre situation. She turned and gestured with one hand toward a booth tucked into the far corner along the front wall of the restaurant, empty but for the obligatory stack of condiments and napkins. "You can sit here, if you like…"

The brunette woman bowed, a tad nervously. "Thank you," she insisted, and then she said it a second time just for good measure. Mai laughed uncomfortably and waved her hand.

"You're very welcome, miss, really. If there's anything else you need, just say so."

"Haruka-chan, wait!" Haruka, of course, was already striding across to her table with a purposeful look upon her face, her heels clicking on the polished floor. As she moved, everyone turned to follow her. She ignored them with an air most professional, as that of someone used to having whole swarms of eyes watching her every move. Yukino was seconds behind her, hurrying along in a much more dainty and demure manner lugging the thick black shoulder-bag up to her side.

Mai gave a slow shrug and then turned back to work.

Haruka threw herself, literally, into her seat, in a most un-ladylike fashion, not that she seemed to care in the least. She leaned back slightly into the seat and watched with narrowed eyes as her brunette companion seated herself, much more lightly it had to be said.

Yukino hefted the thick black shoulder-bag up onto the table and tore open the Velcro flap across the top. Out slid a smooth, sleek silver laptop not more than a foot across each side and almost impossibly thin. It folded out with a click and a soft whirr and the screen lit up with that familiar background, which immediately made Yukino blush and direct the thing away from the surrounding patrons.

Haruka yawned. Yukino ignored her and started typing away as usual.

Haruka leaned up over the table and rested her perfectly smooth chin in one palm, her forefinger twining a few strands of hair into a loose coil. Yukino still ignored her.

Haruka sat back, sighed…and then _very_ slowly, crossed one leg over the other. The hem of her already indecently short skirt pushed up that inch or two higher.

Yukino coughed as her face turned bright red. Her eyes fixed intently to the screen before her as if her life depended on it.

Haruka grinned deviously. "So, my faithful assistant," she spoke again in that not-very-quiet voice of hers. "What would you like to eat, while we're here?"

Yukino shook her head ever so slightly. "I'll be okay, Haruka-chan."

The mustard-haired beauty shook a finger at her companion and drew up a most displeased face. "That won't do, Yukino. You need to eat and stay well and be healthy!" She leaned forward, until she knew the other woman could see down the narrow gap where the top two buttons of her blouse were left unfastened. Her features shifted from deviously sinister to sinister and sultry, mostly sultry. "After all," she continued in a decidedly sensuous tone of voice that set Yukino fidgeting at once, "what _would_ I do without me dear Yukino to take care of me, hm?"

"Haruka-chan…" whined the brunette. She gasped, for reasons undisclosed, and blushed a whole new shade of red. Haruka's grin grew ever wider.

"You're frustrated," she eventually managed to say. "Something didn't go the way you…planned." The pause was punctuated nicely with a barely-audible squeak from the brunette woman and another violent blush.

Haruka pouted, angrily, which looked just fantastic on her, as did most of her moods. "It got away, damn it," she cursed in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. "I can't believe I lost to such a simple opponent."

Yukino gave her an affectionate look. "You didn't lose, Haruka-chan. It got away. There's a huge difference there."

"Oh yeah?"

"It ran away from you. Look at it that way, hm?"

Haruka blinked. "When you say it like that, I do feel much better about it." She grinned triumphantly and made a fist with one hand. "That cowardly beast ran away from the great Ar-"

"-Haruka-chan, NOT here!" Yukino waved her hands in a flurry. "You know you should be more careful about that in public."

Haruka uncrossed, and then re-crossed those endlessly long legs, just as slowly as before. "You're so cautious, Yukino." She smiled. "But then, I suppose it balances out, doesn't it?"

Yukino looked up, a tad puzzled all of a sudden. Her expression shifted to something much more contemplative when she noticed Haruka gazing fondly at the narrow golden ring about her middle finger, fidgeting it about restlessly.

"I thought we agreed you don't have to wear that all the time if you don't want to…"

Haruka gave her a very forceful look. "I want to."

"People will only get the wrong impression."

"Then I'll have to hurry up and find another ring, won't I?"

Yukino blushed darkly and stuffed her nose down against the computer screen. She couldn't hope to keep the smile from her face though.

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That little black cat was back again. It was sitting on the railing on the balcony just outside her front door, waiting for her. As she climbed the stairs up to her apartment, the cat peered intently down at her from its makeshift lookout post, as if assessing her on sight. She glared right back at it.

"And what do you think _you're_ doing here?" she demanded of it.

"Meow," said the cat in a contemptuous tone and promptly ignored her. It curled round in a crescent shape atop the black railing and went to sleep, or whatever it was that cats did that was somewhere between awake and asleep.

Mai frowned at it and turned to her apartment door instead

"I'm home, Mikoto!"

Mai froze, stunned momentarily. Before her was not the drab interior of the small one-bedroom apartment she had so dutifully searched to find, but a room all too familiar. It was long and narrow, with warm yellow walls all around and polished wood furnishings, what little there were. To her immediate left was a door that she also recognised, and past that, a rather diminutive kitchen area, with table and chairs to the right along the opposite wall. Further along, two beds sat side-by-side against the left wall, half hidden behind the kitchen wall. The remainder of the room space was empty, bar for only one thing.

At the far end of the room, in front of the single wide panel window, stood a silhouetted figure of roughly average height, thought apparently quite young, and a slender build. She, for it was most definitely female, blocked out a thick patch of the warm orange sunlight streaming in through the gaps between the horizontal grey blinds across the window, outlining her in a deep shadow.

As Mai stepped forward into the room, her eyes adjusted. She could make out grey and black and crimson on that silhouette, a flowing mass of deep purple-black hair. The figure turned to her and smiled, affectionately.

"Mai!"

Mai blinked. "Huh?"

Mikoto stared up at her longingly. "You're home. I'm hungry…"

The redhead chuckled weakly and shook her head. "You're just helpless without me, aren't you?"

"Nuh!" argued Mikoto. "Mai's cooking is the best!" She grabbed the taller girl by her wrist and practically dragged Mai inside, fidgeting excitedly as she went.

"Alright! I'll cook you dinner right away," Mai relented at last, shrugging out of her thin red jacket and hanging it up neatly by the front door. Mikoto pranced about happily, sending her gathered feline friends dashing for cover under the breakfast table.

"What will Mai cook today?" she asked with a wondrous expression, eyes wide, peering up at the taller girl. Or more specifically, at the spatula Mai now held in her hand.

"I'm bored. And I bet you've never eaten anything fancier than ramen, so I thought I'd experiment!" Mikoto looked a bit puzzled as Mai raided through the refrigerator and laid out a strange selection of vegetables on the counter. "You should go sit down and wait, and keep your friends occupied. Wouldn't want anyone getting curious and ending up with burnt fur."

The young girl shook her head emphatically and made some sort of affirmative noise. With that, she turned and dove under the table, plucking felines one by one out from their precious hiding place and placing them in a line across the table-top in order of height. The little black one was missing, again, but that really wasn't all too surprising. He did tend to sunbathe on the balcony quite often.

"Now then," said Mikoto, pointing her finger at the first cat and slowly moving along the ranks. "Mai says you have to stay out of the kitchen, because it's not safe in there."

"Meow," said one cat. The rest agreed.

Mikoto crossed her arms and pouted, much like Mai, though she would never admit it so readily. "Either you all behave, or you can't come here any more."

The horde conferred among themselves for a moment or two before eventually settling the issue. One at a time, they each clambered down off the table and wandered off to find their own separate lounging spots around the apartment, noticeably away from the kitchen area. Only the skinny grey tabby stayed, slinking down into a half-curl on one of the unused chairs.

Mikoto nodded triumphantly. "Good."

"Mikoto-chan, what are you doing over there?"

"Just sorting everyone out! We're all done now so there's no problem."

Mai had already fired up the gas stove and was chopping vegetables, a pot full of rice bubbling softly beside her. "That's…wonderful," she replied, quite deeply confused. Kami help if she ever started actually understanding that strange, eccentric wild girl.

Mikoto sniffed deeply. The effect was immediate, as her face lit up like a floodlight and her features melted into anticipatory ecstasy. "Smells so gooooood," she half-moaned. "Mai's cooking smells so wonderful."

"You're just easy to please," chuckled the redhead, waving at her with the end of the knife. "I bet you're used to living on bento and ramen."

Mikoto didn't answer. She was too busy looking around curiously and sniffing. Mai cocked her head.

"Er…what are you doing?"

"Do you smell that?"

Mai sniffed. "What, the garlic? If you don't like garlic, I can just…"

"No," interrupted the young girl. "I smell something…" Her head span towards the window so fast Mai thought her neck might crack. "Orphan!"

"Oh crap," said Mai's subconscious. She dropped the chopping knife anyway and had the foresight to turn the rice right down before she dashed round the counter to get a better view out of her apartment window. "Where?"

"I don't know…but it's close. I can smell it even better now."

Mai cursed, repeatedly. "Has to be right when I'm making dinner, doesn't it? The bastard. I bet he timed it this way."

Mikoto tugged the loose trousers that Mai had bought down off her skinny waist and dashed back into the bedroom, forgoing sliding the door shut behind her in her haste. Mai peeked in, not that she was _peeking_ exactly, and was a little puzzled to see the young Hime wriggling her way into the expansive green sweater that was far too large for her.

"What's that for?"

Mikoto turned and dashed back out straight past her, towards the rack by the apartment door where all their combined armada of about five pairs of shoes were stored, along with various other bizarre odds and ends. "I always wear this when I fight," replied the half-naked girl as she plucked her sword from its resting place and swung it up dangerously high over her head, to rest behind her back where she could hold it in place with just the one hand.

Mai blinked. "Fight?" She shook her head slowly. "You mean you're coming with me?"

Mikoto looked at her as if she had just said the stupidest thing ever. "There's an Orphan out there. I have to get rid of it."

"Is there any way I can talk you out of it? It's kinda dangerous, you know…"

Mikoto shook her head petulantly.

"Fine," Mai sighed. "I'm coming with you. _We_ can find this thing and then _we'll_ kill it. And hopefully, get back before the rice catches fire."

Mikoto was already peeling back the blinds and sliding the window open. She leapt out without a second thought and Mai felt the most unnerving sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. A loud girlish yelp from outside quelled that.

"Come on, Mai!" yelled the dark-haired girl. "Hurry up! It's getting away!"

Mai wriggled her fingers impatiently as the thick, multi-coloured beads materialised about her ankles and wrists in wide orbiting ring configurations. At once, that strange feeling of energy flashed through her, and she had to suppress a slight shiver. "Well, like Midori-chan said… it'll always catch up to me in the end."

She looked out of the window, at the rapidly darkening sky and the almost deserted street below, and grinned. "Then I better be ready for it, hadn't I?"

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On a moderately busy street in Tokyo's 12th District, there sat an electronics hardware store, of modest size and sandwiched between two other similarly sized establishments, a fast-food restaurant on one side and a bookshop on the other. Its entire front was taken up by huge panel windows that extended the full length from the pavement right up to the ledge that signalled where the ground level ceiling would be, and all the way out to either side edge. Filling most of the grand window-space were rows upon rows of television sets in all sizes and styles and colours, from widescreens to flat monitors thinner than a book, to strange designs in all sorts of abstract images. On every screen, at that very moment, was a deep blue background behind a curving hardwood-topped desk, behind which sat a rather fetching young blonde woman holding a thick stack of papers in a traditional reading position as she looked cheerfully into the camera and spoke with such speed and coherence that only newscasters seem capable of simultaneously. A small logo in the bottom left corner signified that this was a Tokyo News Network Live broadcast.

At that time in particular, the small digital display in the bottom corner of the picture was reading 20:04 and the ticker just above was scrolling past summarised events from the headlines, a second just above repeating the same words in English. A small crowd of people lingered in front of the shop, some of them just pausing and looking at the hardware on display, a few actually watching the news with intent before passing on, ever more new passers-by to take their place so that the crowd never seemed to really grow or shrink.

"In other news today," announced the slowly scrolling bilingual yellow subtitles that crawled lazily from the top left corner down to the bottom while the announcer spoke, her voice muted through the glass, "the J.S.D.F. have just received a large shipment of foreign weaponry. The first of these brand-new missile protection systems is scheduled to be installed in the J.S.D.F. base just outside Tokyo Central within the next few months." The screen shifted to show the usual seemingly random images of Japanese Self-Defence troops doing various mundane tasks, an airbase, tanks, and so on. "The Japanese Defence Cabinet issued the contract for new ground-based anti-missile systems early in 2003 after local companies presented many concepts for guidance and targeting computers to the J.S.D.F., but then proved unable to supply appropriate weaponry. In a last-minute bid against American contractor Lockheed Martin that has become almost synonymous with the company's business image, the UK-based arms manufacturing firm…"

"Can you believe that?" said a rather tall middle-aged-looking man standing in front of the window, watching with a cynical look on his face. He nudged the person next to him with an elbow. "We sign up all that paperwork to get rid of the army and now our government goes and builds a new one without us."

"It's a state military," replied the smartly dressed young businessman next to him, trying to look apologetic. "It exists to protect the public. Not much use if all our hardware is obsolete. Besides…" He nodded back at the screen again. "…It's just anti-missile junk mainly."

The older man looked down at him sceptically. "Seems to me like you know a lot about this stuff, eh?"

"I pay attention to the financial world. Most wouldn't know, but B.A.E. has had more and more financial influence in the Japanese market over the past few decades, ever since that trade agreement."

His elder gave him a rueful half-grin. "I'd be worried about foreigners invading, but I know from my own son that they've put money into Hokkaido for years."

"Your son works for them?" The younger man then held up a hand and bowed his head apologetically. "Excuse me, it's not my place to intrude on your familial affairs."

The older man snorted. "You're too damned polite, too. I was thinking you'd be one of those punk teenagers, but you're more like _my_ father."

They each laughed, and then went their separate ways, leaving the crowd to fill back in against the window.

"…Samsung Motors have denied involvement in the incident," continued the newscaster on another topic entirely, "claiming that their only reason for contributing to the recovery team efforts was to inspect the vehicle itself for faults." A picture of one of Tokyo's many parks filled the screen, centred about a large maintenance vehicle that lay on its side, gutted and steaming on the grass next to a wide paved pathway. The ground beneath it was burnt in a strangely uniform circular formation. "This follows similar appearances of Samsung teams at the site of other accidents involving municipal vehicles, that Samsung Motors claim are part of their new corporate objective; to assess vehicle design flaws which have proven to cause serious problems and thereby wipe them out from their own products. Thankfully, no one was actually hurt in the incident, though police have made a statement to Tokyo News concerning two young adult males who were found nearby the site of the accident, apparently delirious. The two men are apparently being held overnight for questioning…"

"Mikoto, slow down already!"

The crowd scattered away from the window in disarray as something short and green dashed straight through the lot of them, dragging some enormous black lump behind it. It darted down the street a short way along an ugly grey metal railing that lined the front of some old abandoned industrial building, then turned and bolted through a gap where one of the bars had come loose, disappearing from sight.

Right behind it was a second, much larger something, fairly tall and orange-haired, dressed in dark brown slacks and a light grey t-shirt, yelling after the first blur whilst also attempting to apologize to everyone for barging through the crowd. She reached the fence, sighed heavily and then squeezed herself through the gap too.

Mikoto leapt up and over the six-foot high wall surrounding the run-down old factory building as if it wasn't even there, flying through the air in a wide arc that sent her sword streaming out behind her, barely clipping the top edge of the concrete wall and throwing up a gasp of orange sparks. She dove into a half-roll on the other side and continued in the same direction, bare feet slapping against the cold paved ground and the edge of her sword bouncing against the pavement, setting off a thin trail of sparks behind as she ran. The thick pale-green sweater draped over her body flapped out behind her as she ran, thankfully never rising higher than about mid-thigh.

"Mikoto!" yelled Mai, again. The dark-haired young girl seemed completely unprepared to listen to reason, however, and was only getting further and further ahead as they sped towards their unseen common enemy. Mai felt the nagging temptation to summon up her Element and just fly the rest of the way, but Midori-sensei's voice crept into the back of her head, "A Hime can't be a Hime if she's locked in prison, or being dissected!"

"Stupid Orphan," Mai hissed, and then she cursed the creature quite loudly and inventively, mostly just for existing in the first place.

"Mai, hurry up!" yelled back an excited young voice from far ahead of her as she rounded a corner and plunged headlong down a dark, narrow alleyway sandwiched between the brick-like multi-storey main building standing in the centre of the complex, and a small metal shed with several rather large and brightly painted warning signs on the door. Mikoto was nowhere to be found.

"Up here!"

Mai looked up, and was slightly taken aback by the sight of Mikoto's lower half as she wriggled her way in through a narrow window some ten feet up the side of the building. "What the…how'd you get up there? And what do you think you're doing! This is private property! We can't be here…"

"Hurry up, Mai!" the young girl shouted back down at her. "It'll get away!" With that, her feet disappeared through the window.

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The beast roared deafeningly, as if that was supposed to be scary or something. Mikoto hurled herself headfirst towards the noisy brute and hefted her blade round in a wide, rolling arc that took one thick blue arm apart at the elbow, accompanied by a screaming bellow of pain and a thick gout of green blood.

That huge whip-like appendage on its head lashed out at her and cleaved through a concrete pillar not seconds behind her, reminding the young girl why she had been avoiding direct assault up until that point. She promptly dove down its front, right past its blind spot, and ducked beneath the underside of that huge floating wormlike body, dashing for cover on the other side. Three enormous curved blades sank into the concrete floor behind her, so close she felt the wind on the soles of her feet.

Before it could turn to follow her, a fireball the size of a small car slammed into it broadside and burst open like a water balloon, splashing out flames all over the creature's side. They died quickly, but they left smouldering black marks on its skin all across its left side.

"Mikoto, get back!"

Another fireball leapt out of the darkness and engulfed both left arms, forcing the creature to flail about wildly in an attempt to put out the fire spreading across its flesh, bellowing angrily as it did so. All seven huge green eyes rolled around its head like liquid, gathering in a cluster towards the source of the flame.

Mai fixed it with the nastiest look she could muster, which was pretty awful given her years of practice, and held her hands out towards it. "Stupid thing," she yelled at it angrily, "interrupting my cooking! I spent all morning buying those ingredients and now they'll go to waste! You'll pay for this, damn it."

The creature screamed at her and tried to blot her out of existence with one of its remaining arms. The attempt failed dismally when that huge scythe-like blade glanced off an invisible curved barrier with a deafening metallic clang.

"Mai! The eyes!"

A flaming orange stream lanced out from the redhead's hands and struck the creature dead centre in the middle of that ugly dome-shaped head, puncturing straight through one huge eye. The eye gaped wide like an open mouth, showing thick rows of fangs and a writhing mass of fleshy tendrils. Unhesitating, Mai struck again, sending a white-hot wad of fire straight down that open maw like a ball through a hoop.

The creature stuttered in its non-existent tracks, tail thrashing madly inches above the floor, clawing at the ground with all three remaining arms. Its other "eyes" burst open in turn, belching out steam. While it writhed in agony, Mikoto launched herself at the thing from behind and brought her sword up in front of her, thrusting with her entire body weight. The tip of the blade glowed darkly as it swept through the air.

The blade sank through the monster's mid-section as if it were butter. The agonised wailing and roaring ceased abruptly and the creature's body slowly evaporated into nothing.

Mai growled. "They're getting worse," she said half to herself as Mikoto hopped back down to the floor and hefted her blade to rest over one shoulder. "It's like they're more and more intent on killing me each one I meet."

"They don't stand a chance," said Mikoto triumphantly, grinning up at the taller woman. Mai smiled back down at her. "Between the two of us, we're more than strong enough."

"I hope you're right, or else there'll be problems. For starters, what'll happen if you get hurt and can't attend school next week?"

Mikoto stabbed her sword into the floor and pouted. "No way! I'm not going to some stupid school! I spent all this time getting away from one…"

Mai chuckled and rubbed her hand playfully through the young girl's hair. "I'd better find you a job, too! I bet you could pass off as sixteen, so we could get you working part-time like me."

She slid an arm around the girl's shoulders and half-dragged her back out of the room, leaving the darkness and a faint smell of ash behind.

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Outside, the fence was still quite the obstacle, especially for Mai who happened to be not quite as lean as her young companion. By the time she got through the gap, her jacket was more than a little torn across the chest.

As the pair straightened themselves up and Mai made sure that no one had seen them sneaking out of the place so suspiciously, they both failed to notice a darkened car standing across the street, lights off, silent and seemingly unoccupied. The figure therein, obscured from view by only the darkness and the thick black coat about him, or her, reached into one pocket and drew out a small cylindrical object about the size of a normal pen. A thumb pressed one small button on the side of the device and then the figure held it up at face level.

"Reporting op nine," said a very low, soft voice in a mild German accent. "Unit alpha, unit beta, initial combat test status…"

The figure grinned ominously. "…all is going as predicted."


	3. Chapter 3 : Spontaneous Ignition

"Good evening," answered a smooth, deep masculine voice. "I'll assume since only a select few know of this number, that you know who I am. And just who might this be?"

"My name's not really important, is it? Besides, I think I'd prefer our relationship to be fully anonymous. Makes it easier for both of us, wouldn't you say?" The voice on the line chuckled for a while at that one. Natsuki smiled. At least her initial information had been correct; whoever he was, he had a strange sense of humour. "I've looked all over the city for you," she continued. "I'd hope that you're as good as your reputation would have me believe, because I can just as easily take my business elsewhere."

"I can get you absolutely anything," replied the voice. "But only a handful of people can get you this number. Which makes me wonder just how you got hold of me…"

"A blind guess," lied Natsuki, grinning sardonically. The voice chuckled back at her.

"A lady with a sense of humour. I admire that. So what can I do for you then, hm?"

"There've been reports of strange animal sightings in Tokyo lately…" There was a moment of silence. That moment stretched, longer and longer, until Natsuki finally frowned and started tapping her fingers impatiently on the metal case in front of her. "Still there?"

"I know who you are," said the voice somewhat briskly, "and what you want. Don't hang up, this is important."

"Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't. In fact…you shouldn't trust anyone. Even people you know. Take my word for it."

Natsuki tried to laugh sarcastically but it didn't quite sound right. There was something strangely compelling in that tone of voice. "Awfully hypocritical of you, isn't that?"

"Just be quiet and listen." Natsuki obeyed, though she was rapidly becoming more and more annoyed. Her foot tapped on the concrete impatiently as she leaned against the booth, gazing across the road at a small fast-food diner. "The Tokyo 6th District Public Bank isn't what it seems. These things you're looking for, you won't find them there. But you will find something else. Something even more important than…Orphans."

Natsuki whirled round. "How do you…!" she began sharply, then pushed her voice down. "Who gave you that name? Are you with the First District?"

The voice chuckled at her again. "I can get everything. Anything and everything there is to get. And a few unobtainable things too, if the price is right. Where I got the name is unimportant. And you might want to rethink your preconceptions of the First District."

"Then what _is_?" hissed Natsuki impatiently.

"Listen, and listen carefully. I'm going to hang up. You'll go across the road, talk to the waitress standing outside that diner, the one in the pink skirt. Act casual." Natsuki snorted, but remained quiet. "Mention the word "Kansai" to her and she'll give you a key." There was another pause, much shorter this time. Natsuki felt her impatience growing by the second, as was her innate curiosity. "At exactly twelve fifteen tomorrow night, the security system at the 6th District Public Bank will go offline. All the guards will be called away. Don't ask why, just be there. You'll have twenty minutes to get in and out…with your prize."

"And that prize would be what, exactly?"

"You'll find out," laughed the voice. "Just remember…act casual. They're watching you all the time."

Natsuki frowned again. "What? What do you mean…" She hissed and slammed the phone back down when all she got back was a dial tone. "Jerk."

She looked across the road at that run-down bomb shelter of a diner and sure enough, there were several beaten up wooden tables standing outside, like picnic benches. A young woman in a strange uniform was slowly polishing one of the tables with a wadded up cloth, a tin in her other hand. She was wearing a pink miniskirt that clearly didn't go with the rest of the outfit.

Natsuki approached, cautiously, looking all around her for any sign of sinister goings-on. A black suited man was standing in front of one of the other payphones behind her now. An old lady was walking slowly down the street some distance away, her back towards the dark-haired woman. Nothing suspicious, though somehow that call had gotten her a little edgy all of a sudden. She kept looking behind her, expecting to see something bad rushing her way, but it never came.

She stopped in front of the diner and looked up at the broken neon sign flashing above the door. As casually as she could manage, she sighed and turned to one side, hands on her hips.

"Excuse me?"

The waitress in the pink skirt stopped her polishing and stood up, turning round slowly and looking over her shoulder. "Hello?"

"I'm sorry but…I think I'm a little lost."

The young woman…no, she was closer to a girl, barely out of school yet. She smiled cheerfully at Natsuki and set her cleaning implements aside on the table. "I'd be happy to help, miss. Is there any place in particular you'd like to be going?"

"I was looking for a garage. I'm running a little low right now." She gestured out behind her to where her bike stood parked up against the phone booth.

The girl smiled at her even wider, her unnervingly red eyes sparkling, though something about the expression bothered Natsuki profoundly. "A very nice machine, if I may say so miss, looks expensive indeed." She nodded. "Well, I know there's a little place near here, it's just down the road." She pointed off in one direction. "There's a sign about a hundred metres down, it's huge, you can't miss it. If you take a left there and then follow the road round, you'll come straight to it."

Natsuki nodded politely. "Thank you."

"Not many people getting lost in this place any more. You must not be from here, hm?"

"Kansai, actually," replied Natsuki, trying to hide a devious smirk.

The waitress showed little reaction. "Well then, in that case…" She reached into one pocket and pulled out a set of keys, and a small folded piece of paper. "It's dangerous to go on alone around here. Take this."

Natsuki looked at her a little oddly for a moment. "Erm…thank you." She took the offered items, stuffed them into one of the multitude of hidden pockets on the inside of her jacket and then turned away again.

The waitress smiled even wider and went straight back to work, humming some nameless tune to herself.

Once Natsuki was back on her bike and some way off into the distance, the waitress stopped again and stood straight. Her smile melted off like water running over a duck's back, revealing a blank emotionless expression underneath. Her eyes, though, were as bright and sparkling as before as she gathered a handful of breadcrumbs from the small plastic bag in her pocket and scattered them over a table.

She smiled, the very tiniest of smiles.

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"Moko-chan?"

Motoko pushed her glasses up her nose with the tip of one finger and leaned back into her chair a little more, away from the computer screen before her. She turned round to face the source of that familiar voice and found Shizuru standing right behind her, practically crowded over the chair. Her hand surreptitiously adjusted the top button of her blouse, and the older woman chuckled to herself with an impish grin.

"Ma'am?" intoned the blonde in her usual borderline-derisive monotone voice, failing to appear anything except contemptuously bored.

"You're not too busy right now, are you Moko-chan?"

Motoko stared, the stare that was reserved for when her superior made some sort of blatant sexual allusion. It was unnervingly similar to the stare she gave practically everything Shizuru said. She pushed her glasses back up her nose with one finger and waited patiently, since there was no come-back that would put off Shizuru's rampant juvenile sense of humour.

"I've got a little job for you, Moko-chan," the brunette woman explained cheerfully, her face lit up in a way that could only really mean that trouble was coming. She pointed towards the computer and continued, "I know you can get me the records for all the patients under _my_ staff, past and present, for which I'm very grateful by the way. But I was wondering perhaps…could you get me the room records for D-twelve?"

Motoko blinked, thoroughly confused, though her expression showed little change from the usual bored cynicism. "D-twelve? But that's Yasata-san's section, isn't it, up in the pharmacology department…?"

"Well, yes…" Shizuru pouted; it was disgustingly effective, on anyone _besides_ her secretary. "You see, there's just this little problem of the two men guarding room thirteen-forty-two. They've been there every time I've gone past and, the trouble is, nobody has ever mentioned them to me at all."

"You're not the sector administrator y'know, ma'am," sighed Motoko.

"Well it's still suspicious, considering that I asked Hajima-kun and he said that that room is listed as a temporary storage room for cleaning supplies." She chuckled again when Motoko's eyebrows shot straight up her forehead. "I knew _that_ would get your curiosity going."

The blonde coughed sharply. "It's none of your business, ma'am, and it's none of mine. You should just leave it up to Yasata-san to deal with."

Shizuru cocked her head to one side ever so slightly, a curious expression on her face. "Hm? Where's your sense of adventure, Moko-chan?" she teased, poking the blonde's shoulder with a finger. "Besides, it _is_ pretty suspicious, if you ask me. Suspicious things bother me, that's all."

"I said you should drop it…ma'am." Motoko stared up at her for a moment quite intensely. The older woman felt some inexplicable tension in the air and took a hesitant step backward, carefully not showing her uneasiness on her face.

"You're right, Motoko," she sighed at last, smiling reassuringly. "I'll ask Yasata again when I see him next, just to be sure. And that'll be that, eh?"

The blonde turned back to her workstation and carried on with her duties in silence. That deep, pervading awkwardness hung in the air like a thick blanket, so Shizuru withdrew hastily back through the office door before suspicion overcame her and strode away down the corridor.

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It was a warm, sunny Friday evening in Tokyo's 12th District, just like every other Friday evening in summer. The air was still scorching hot outside and thick with moisture, and the sun was still startlingly high in the late afternoon sky. The sky was slowly turning from its usual pale blue to that deep fiery orange of sunset, and the clouds were gradually coagulating into a thick, uniform greyness high above the city, edged with highlights in gold and red and pink that made for quite the interesting visual pattern. The shadows were growing longer as the sun sank back behind the Tokyo downtown skyline and everything was slowly being swallowed by that strange haze of orange light that always suffused through Japanese summer evenings.

The Jogousaki apartment building was every bit as dull and ugly as ever, just that plain grey brick-shaped lump of concrete that sat sandwiched between several alike concrete lumps. The very few front windows that faced out onto the main road were all dark, curtains or blinds left open and no signs of life therein, all bar one. One, on the corner of the third floor, was covered over by a rather weak looking set of horizontal blinds in the same drab grey as the building walls, through which leaked warm orange-yellow artificial light from within. Thankfully, the window was closed, though there were few neighbours who might actually think to complain of the noise had it been open.

Natsuki tried her best to look casually disdainful, arms folded over her chest and an annoyed look on her face, her bottom lip pouting as it always did when she found herself in such uncomfortable quarters.

"Just why, exactly, am I here again?"

Mai looked across at her houseguest, or more like apartment-guest, and frowned. Or pouted. It was one of the two, or it was both, or it was somewhere between and neither. Mai certainly had a talent for complicated facial expressions.

"Karaoke!" she declared a little more loudly than was absolutely necessary. She thrust one finger into the air imperiously and tossed her head back slightly, which only made her hair flutter about restlessly. "And to loosen that uptight attitude of yours a little. You need some Midori-chan style teaching from a disciple herself."

"Alright, you don't have to shout," Natsuki bit back at her sharply. "I can hear fine, even with that damn noise." She thumbed over her shoulder at where Mikoto was busy watching some derogatory children's show or other on possibly the smallest portable television in existence, volume cranked right up to compensate for the terrible reception.

Mai blushed slightly, though she had been that way for an hour or so now, and waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, shut up, you!" She sat back into her chair with a whump and adjusted the hem of her skirt, which had worked up a little too high with all her getting up and down and shuffling about and pointing and such.

"You really shouldn't ever drink sake again. Ever." Mai pouted and crossed her arms again. "Really," insisted Natsuki, her nerves starting to fray. She wasn't one to talk, of course; she'd already downed half a bottle herself. That had been _before_ Mikoto had investigated, however, and then Mai had vowed that alcohol would be banned from the apartment for good, or until further notice. Or an emergency.

Natsuki shrugged. Not like it was her apartment or anything.

"So," Mai repeated, poking the dark-haired girl in her shoulder. "You going first or me?"

Natsuki tried to brush the finger away and missed just barely, which certainly made her hesitate a second or two. Perhaps she should take a taxi home after all, instead of riding. "You got me into this, so _you_ go first," she insisted, shoving the slightly beaten-up handheld microphone towards the redhead. Mai snatched it from her hand with a precocious grin and stuck her chest out triumphantly.

"Coward," she muttered.

Natsuki twitched angrily. "What did you say?"

Mai looked serenely innocent. "Nothing…"

Meanwhile, Mikoto was working on getting that stupid microscopic television tuned in a little better, fiddling back and forth with several very small knobs until the picture looked anywhere approaching coherent. Having no expertise with electrical appliances, or appliances in general, she was having not quite the best time of it. Her searching for a comedy channel she had seen a mere second's glimpse of before had ultimately yielded very little more than a news segment and something regarding cooking.

"…routine training exercise brings the United Nations' Pacific Third Fleet into close proximity with Chinese Territorial waters. The Chinese Republic government have made statements to the effect that any incursion will be seen as hostile action and that the Chinese military is prepared for retaliation. However, they have also promised the Chinese people, and the UN, that military action will be seen as an absolute last resort and that they will do everything they can to make sure this exercise remains peaceful.

In local news, a large shipment of canned fish has been lost from the Russian cargo ship Sakhalin several kilometres off the coast of Shikoku. According to sources, a large hole was discovered in the side of the ship just above the watermark late last night and, upon further investigation, several tons of canned tuna were found to be inexplicably missing. Police say there are very few leads to go on …"

Mikoto blinked. "Cats," she said to herself, and then nodded. Yes, cats. Cats would steal tuna, even if it were canned. Her common sense refused to comment. "Or an Orphan." But she had felt nothing all night, or the previous day, or at all for almost a week since they had destroyed the last creature, so that probably wasn't it.

"Maybe someone was just really hungry?" she mused idly to herself as she tried to change the channel.

Behind her, Natsuki was singing, not very well though she didn't seem to care too much. Mai was watching and trying her best not to laugh as the blue-haired girl threw her free hand about expressively while she sang, clearly putting everything she had into it if not more. Her voice rose and fell with the tune and her tongue followed the brisk pace with ease, but singing was clearly not her forte. The song being in English did little to help the problem.

She wore the same plain dark purple slacks she had worn when she had first arrived, though now her sweater was off and tied by its sleeves around her neck to flow back behind her like a cape. A sleeveless black blouse covered up most of her upper half, down to just above her midriff, leaving only a narrow gap between the hem and the waistband of her pants. Dark stocking-clad feet tapped against the wooden panel flooring as she sang along with the words on the screen.

Mai pouted and turned her eye to the window instead. "Sexy…" she whined under her breath. "Maybe I should work out some more? Guys don't go for chubby girls these days…"

Then Natsuki slipped on the polished wood flooring and fell right on top of her, and there was much commotion. Getting the athletic girl standing again took a little while thanks to the effect of alcohol on her equilibrium, but they managed without too much trouble. Natsuki missed almost a third of the next song, though she didn't seem to mind, and she threw herself straight into it with a vengeance.

"She's so forceful, too," Mai pondered to no one in particular. Her eyes drifted about the room for a while as she listened to Natsuki's not-very-great singing, Mikoto still making a fuss in the background as she molested that poor portable television to death. The clock on the wall ticked away to itself quietly and the time rolled on as always.

"I wonder if she has a boyfriend?"

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Shizuru sneezed.

"Now I know that wouldn't be Moko-chan, because she always says it to my face…"

"Er, Director?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry, please continue. Don't mind me." The doctor turned back to that young girl lying in bed, eyes shut, an intravenous tube in her left wrist, and carried on poking about her right hand with the pin.

"She seems responsive enough to pain, so there's no nervous damage." He stepped back a short way and picked up the clipboard from where it sat on a table beside the bed. "She's got some strange reflexes though. And getting the IV was oddly difficult. Her skin seems to be…I don't know…tougher than normal."

"Perhaps you've been on shift a little too long, Doctor," Shizuru offered in that soothingly cheerful voice of hers. "You go get some coffee and I'll make sure she gets a fresh drip once that one runs out."

The man, somewhere in his early thirties and quite a striking visage under short-cropped brown hair, bowed his head respectfully and handed over a sheet of paper. "I think you'll need to run through the section nurse though. None of our regular bags have some of this stuff in."

Shizuru took a quick glance over the list and blinked. "I may not be a doctor myself…but I must say some of these _are_ fairly odd."

"Her body's dehydrated so badly, but when I tested her blood there were…well…aluminium pockets. And a few other transition metals in there too, nothing too dangerous mind you. But in her bloodstream?" He sighed and shook his head. "She's not showing any of the normal signs of blood poisoning and they're in very small amounts, so we're assuming it's normal for her. Whatever that means."

"Wait…" Shizuru tapped a finger against the X-ray picture hanging from the wall beside the bed, right over a strange dark blotch. "This is a micro-image of the blood vessel you took the sample from, isn't it?"

"You're infallible, Fujino."

"So what in the world is this…thing?"

"As far as I can tell, it's something dense and hard, floating in her blood. The MRI should give us a better picture but, to be completely honest, I have no idea what they could be."

"They?" Shizuru cocked an eyebrow.

The doctor held up his hands. "You heard. There's dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. None in the samples I took, though, which is strange to say the very least."

"Well, thank you Doctor. You go get your coffee, and make sure it's strong."

"Yes ma'am," chuckled the man, and vanished through the open doorway.

Shizuru paused, then, and looked back down at that enigmatic young girl in the bed. Her face was pale, but dark red patches had broken out in random places on her neck, arms, her chest, practically everywhere but her feet and back. Her feet themselves were blistered terribly, as were her fingers and the palms of her hands. Her bright orange hair was in total disarray, twisted and knotted and frizzy all over, as if she had had her head stuck in an oven. Her eyes shifted restlessly under their lids, and her narrow lips were constantly squeezing shut and splitting open again, mouthing out silent words in her dreams. Her body was thin, bony even, almost malnourished under that flimsy hospital sheet, and showing only the beginnings of puberty. By the look of her alone and her diminutive stature, she couldn't be more than a teenager at the most.

Strangest of all was the piercing in her left ear; a small but ornate golden setting within which sat a perfectly rounded gemstone of shocking blue, glowing very gently under its own internal light.

Shizuru sighed. "You certainly are a mysterious one, young lady. I hope you can explain yourself when you wake up…" Then she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

The girl in the bed opened her lips again and spoke, her voice broken and weak.

"Ni…na…"

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Several hours later, it was clear that Natsuki would not be going home by herself. Mai refused to let her ride home for fear of some accident, which the dark-haired girl protested quite adamantly, and Natsuki herself bluntly refused to leave her bike in the redhead's care. Both women were working one another to a state of aggravation, until Mikoto, already yawning constantly, keeled over on the table and promptly fell fast asleep.

Mai blinked. "It must be really late if Mikoto's falling asleep like that…" She looked at the clock on the wall and groaned. "Well…I suppose you could sleep here, at least you'll be close to your precious bike that way."

"Probably better than the motels around here at least," Natsuki retorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

Mai poked her shoulder. "Give over, already. It's too late now to be fighting."

"I guess you're right. I know I'm going to have a killer headache in the morning."

"Ha!"

Natsuki looked at the redhead with an indignant expression. "What?"

"So you're _not_ invincible after all!"

"Quiet, you."

Mai tossed her hands up. "Forget it! Let's just…get some sleep already." She switched the karaoke machine off, though it took her two attempts to hit the switch, and then stood up a little unsteadily.

"You really can't hold your drink."

"Oh, shut up. If I'd had a little more, I'd be fine. Too little or too much makes me dizzy."

Natsuki sighed and shook her head as the other woman drifted across the room to where one wall was covered with several paper panels, like an old-fashioned Japanese house. She slid open a paper door and the light swept in, illuminating very little of a cavernous space behind the wall.

"Wait…you sleep in your closet?"

Mai looked over her shoulder with a shrug. "What about it? Only space I had for the bed, though it's more just a mattress than a bed."

"Wouldn't a futon be easier?" replied Natsuki, walking up behind her.

"Picky." Mai slithered inside and started stripping the sheets off the bed, which took quite some doing given the lack of space in her makeshift bedroom. The bed was, indeed, simply a thick mattress jammed in against the back wall, fitting neatly into one corner of the closet to leave space for a tiny wooden table on the opposite side. Mai was in the process of pulling a pale pink sheet out of its hiding place in a basket underneath the table when Natsuki noticed something odd.

"Where…do you keep your clothes?"

"At my girlfriend's house." Mai grinned at her out of the darkness.

Natsuki felt her cheeks flushing despite her irritation. "You're unbearable. No, I mean…really. Where do you put your clothes if you're using the closet for sleeping in?"

"See that hook in the ceiling?" Mai replied as she wrestled with the sheet. Natsuki turned round to stare up over her head and, lo and behold, a series of small wooden slot handles in a circular pattern set into the concrete above her head. What was stranger was that they each sat in the centre of a roughly wedge-shaped panel of wood, which together formed a thick ring with one wide gap left in the middle bare concrete.

"What the heck?"

"That's my closet."

Natsuki stared at her. "You're kidding."

"Nope. That up there, that's full of all my clothes. Had to fold them real tight to get everything in and I'm already running out of room."

Natsuki stared up for quite a while, so long in fact that Mai finished her job with time to spare, before she deigned to speak again. "Who in the hell designed this place?"

Mai shrugged. "Beats me. The bed's ready, by the way. Or did you want a shower first?"

Natsuki snorted at her. "As if you could even fit one in this hamster-cage."

Mai grinned. "Eh…actually, I usually use the local bath. It's so cramped in there I can't even turn around to wash my back. I'm a little worried about Mikoto though."

"Hm?"

The redhead gestured to where Mikoto lay sprawled across the table, snoring loudly. "I don't think she's been washed for days, weeks even maybe. And I don't know if she's ever even _been_ to a public bath before. And of course, if I take her…"

"You don't want people thinking she's your daughter, hm?" Natsuki chuckled. "You've certainly got that kind of figure."

Mai put her hands on her hips. "You shut up, you…you…lanky little girl."

"Who're you calling skinny?"

"At least I've got something to show off," Mai teased, cupping her hands under her prodigious chest. "I don't know _why_ you wear that suit, it just shows everyone how little you have to offer."

"Well _you_ seem to like it!" Natsuki clapped a hand over her mouth as her face turned red. Mai just laughed at her.

"Deviant!"

"Shut up! You started it!"

"Another few comments like that and I may just decide I like you after all." The redhead stepped aside and gestured to the open closet door. "Your bed, ma'am."

Natsuki turned her nose up and strode inside, sliding the door firmly shut behind herself. "You better not come in here while I'm asleep, you…pervert."

"Go to sleep, damn it." Mai was still giggling as she folded out several thick towels onto the floor and then laid herself carefully down atop them, with one more to cover herself. It wasn't comfortable, but it would do none the less.

"G'night Mikoto-chan."

Mikoto grunted something unintelligible in reply.

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_Mai woke up in another room. A strange room. A profoundly familiar room. Moonlight streamed in through the slits between horizontal blinds that hung across a single, wide window, almost as bright as day, casting a pale silver-blue hue over everything in sight. The bed beneath her was warm and inviting, if a little stiff. A second stood just an arm's length away to her left. There was a reassuring weight resting over her, draped across her stomach mostly, bare skin touching her flesh._

_She sat up, slowly, and looked down. "Where…am I?"_

"_Mai…"_

_The lump atop her shifted and looked up toward her, bright yellow eyes glittering in the dim light._

"_Mikoto?"_

_The young girl shook her head with a soft and somewhat sinister smile that was most definitely uncharacteristic of Mikoto. She held one finger up to her lips. "Don't worry. It's just a dream."_

"_Is this…am I remembering something? Something…from before?"_

"_As I said, this is just a dream."_

_Mai blinked._

"_Or a fantasy, maybe," finished Natsuki as she slowly crawled her way up Mai's body. "A fantasy you can't remember having. Or maybe you're just repressed?"_

"_Maybe I'm insane…"_

_A finger brushed her lips, and Mai knew it wasn't real, that strange ethereal feeling that drifted over her face. "Maybe I'm really just your subconscious, trying to tell you something." Mai blinked, and realised she was facing a mirror image of her own body, shockingly naked and highlighted nicely by the moonlight streaming in. "You imaged that kid first. Maybe you're feeling unloved? Maybe you want to start a family yourself, hm?"_

"_Then…I'm just lonely?"_

"_I'd say horny, myself," giggled the mysterious shape-changing figure. "The way you chased Tate around even while you denied him…" The image changed again into a tall, rather handsome young man with bright blonde hair that stood from his head in a ragged mess, much like Mikoto's. Most of his face was shadowed, but a lecherous smirk shone through._

_Mai paused._

"…_who?"_

_Then everything went black. When she opened her eyes again some time later, things were profoundly different._

_The sky was red like blood, as was the sea. Dark, cold, and foreboding to an extreme. There was a most disturbing sound far too close for comfort, like scorching hot air blowing rhythmically through an endless cavern. It almost sounded like breathing. Somewhere in the distance, a female voice was screaming or laughing hysterically, or both, Mai couldn't be sure._

"_What…" Mai tried to turn her head, but her eyes were locked in one place, gazing out over the crimson ocean before her towards a small dark speck on the horizon. "Where is this? What's…going on?"_

"_Welcome back again, Mai-chan," replied a voice that she instantly loathed for reasons that escaped her. "Nice to see you back so soon."_

"_Who are you? Where are you?"_

"_This is just a dream, Mai, remember?"_

_A young boy with short blue hair appeared before her with a smile and a wave. He turned his back on her and looked straight out over the water himself, towards that dark shape that was rapidly growing larger and larger._

"_Then…you're not who I think you are," Mai reasoned to herself, though it didn't sound very convincing even to her._

"_I have to admire you, Mai-chan. You've faced some horrible things in the past." The boy turned again to face her, and grinned again. In the blink of an eye, Mai found her mother standing in his place before her very eyes._

"_What's coming next is even worse. You'll see."_

_As the apparition walked away along the beach, Mai could only gasp in amazement. At last, she could make out what that dark blotch really was…_

…_a sight that filled her with terror._

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Mai woke with a start, thankfully not enough to roll her out of her makeshift bed and onto the hard floor below. It took her a moment to register the feeling of weight draped over her stomach, and then she sat up rather quickly indeed, arms flailing out to her sides.

Mikoto yelped and rolled off her comfy nesting spot, then fell asleep again almost immediately. Mai was somehow not quite surprised.

She stood up, slowly, carefully, and extricated her feet from the tangled mess of her improvised bedding one by one. The wooden floor was cool beneath her soles and the air was sharp. She tiptoed across to the kitchen with food in mind, but her stomach replied that it was quite full enough. Her head reeled slightly when the light in the refrigerator caught her off-guard and suddenly, a nice cool drink seemed like the most wonderful idea in the world.

"Hangover," Mai grunted under her breath. "I so should have known better. Stupid sake."

Then, suddenly, her dream came rushing back at her in vague, twisting images, rushing about her head like a whirlpool. Her knees faltered and her hand caught the counter as she toppled forwards, holding herself up just barely. Her head was spinning frantically for a moment before the room righted itself and everything drifted back to normal.

"I should really cut back on the sake if I'm having dreams like that."

With the brief relived tension of her dreams over and done with, that morning was one of much hilarity, and Mai took every opportunity she could find to say something sexually suggestive. She found, with some degree of satisfaction, that as the morning progressed Natsuki was becoming gradually less and less bothered by her bizarre sense of humour. The constant blushing tapered off to barely ever, and all she got back then derogatory grunts and the occasional smarmy remark.

Natsuki was off to work, whatever that was, within far too short a time. Most of the socialising that Mai had been carefully planning all week was thrown back in the garbage when Natsuki's phone started ringing urgently for her attention. She had said that Shizuru wanted her for something, something rather important, and had left post haste.

Mikoto still sat in her favourite chair, though, with her patented morning smile, slightly dopy but enthusiastic expression on her face as she gazed up at her would-be guardian busily carrying several plates across from the kitchen on a wooden serving tray. Her grin grew even wider when she saw what was for breakfast, but then it always did.

"Mai's cooking is always the best!" protested Mikoto when the redhead had offered to take her somewhere a little more interesting for dinner that evening, just out of sheer boredom, and that had been only the start of a large and rather strange argument.

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Meanwhile, at the Tokyo 12th District Hospital, Fujino Shizuru was in her office, as usual, roving through sheet after sheet of papers that most not acquainted with the medical profession would never be able to decipher. Her notebook sat on the desk, open, scanning slowly through endless pages of documents and charts and the like.

"So, what's wrong with her anyway?" asked the navy blue haired young woman sitting neatly in the chair opposite her, one leg crossed over the other, her dark riding suit gleaming in the harsh artificial light in the room. Her helmet hung from a coat-hook near the door, along with her gloves.

The older woman gave her a cautious look that said she would rather not be jumping to conclusions and sighed. "Well, at the moment, she's just extremely dehydrated. We're working on solving that right now."

"It _is_ summer you know. Couldn't she just be some dumb kid, wandered out, got lost, got heatstroke and collapsed or something?"

Shizuru shook her head, very patiently. "She's just like the other one. They're both so dehydrated, but it's more than that. Her hair looks half-toasted and her eyes are so red and sore. When she woke up, she was holding her hand over her face and avoiding the lights. And her skin…just feels so dry and rough, and she's sunburnt all over. It's like she's been through a desert."

Natsuki blinked. "So she's a foreigner?"

The older woman shrugged slowly and turned to her computer again. "She's also running a high temperature. Her core temperature is well above normal. She should be suffering from hyperthermia by now but she shows no signs of internal damage, besides her being a little singed on the outside."

"Well, as suspicious as that is, we can't really make any assumptions until we have a little more substantial evidence, don't you agree?"

"Like her blood exams, you mean?" Shizuru slid a thin file across the desk and looked up at her companion with a very serious expression. "There's something profoundly not right about her blood in particular."

Natsuki took the file, a little apprehensively, and peered inside. "What about it?" she asked, peeling out several sheets of paper and skimming over them.

"It's full of very strange things. Like trace metals. Some of them alloys nobody has even seen before, too. And gas pockets, of all things."

"Bubbles?" Natsuki looked as bemused as she sounded. "In her _blood_?"

"Pockets," Shizuru reaffirmed, holding up one cautioning finger. "Things like Helium and Nitrogen bubbles, but stuck inside little capsules of something we can't identify. Whatever it is it's so thin we're having trouble seeing it properly."

"Why is your job never ordinary?"

Shizuru smiled. "You'd be bored if it were, though. Admit it."

"You said she woke up earlier. What happened then?"

"She was unintelligible. She speaks Japanese but it's no accent I've ever heard before. All I could make out was that she was yelling for her father…"

"And you have no idea who that is, of course."

"We've asked the local Police to check their missing persons' records for her, and if that doesn't work they've promised to take it to the national registry office. She might be a foreigner after all unless we can find her in the citizen lists."

"And what about the other one?"

"She's in the same condition, though she seems much weaker at the moment. She's been unconscious since we took her in, only woke up once. She has the same accent, or very close, though she was a little weak so it's hard to be sure."

"What did she say?"

"Just "Nina.""

Natsuki frowned. "What's Nina? Or who…"

There was a long, uncomfortable pause before Shizuru finally set her half-empty coffee cup down on the table, effectively breaking the silence with a sharp clatter. Natsuki flinched only very slightly.

"So you're going again already, then?" Shizuru sighed. "Am I really that much of a bore?"

"This has nothing to do with that," the dark-haired woman replied, failing to meet her gaze. "I'm caught up in something and I don't have time for distractions."

"A distraction, am I?" Shizuru stood, without warning, and moved round to stand by Natsuki's side instead, leaning in against the younger woman until her lips were almost touching that thick, dark blue hair. "Perhaps I need to try a little harder to distract you, hm?"

Natsuki pushed her away and moved towards the door, not looking back over her shoulder as she often did. "Don't talk like that now," she almost hissed. "This…this isn't the time…"

"You're attracted to her."

For a while, Natsuki didn't answer, her shoulders tense. Shizuru shrugged in defeat and shook her head, a rueful half-smile drifting across her lips. "I can't blame you," she teased. "Tokiha's a wonderfully…well-built young girl, after all."

Natsuki tossed her hair as she turned and flashed the older woman an agitated look. "You'll let me know when Fuuka call up again, won't you?" With that, she turned away again…

Shizuru reached out for her but she slipped through the doorway, and was gone.

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Time passed in Tokyo as it did everywhere else, and soon it was drifting from afternoon into early evening. The sun was sinking gradually lower in the sky and clouds were gathering on the far edge of the city like an impending wave, ready to roll in at moment's notice once the sun had finally turned its back.

Somewhere in a small bar in a none-too-desirable area of the city, the lighting was as bad as ever. The floor was still unwashed, the ceiling was still peeling, and there were still no customers. The bartender didn't seem to care either, as usual, and simply carried on cleaning glasses as he always did and leaning against the taps.

Suddenly, a sharp beeping noise broke the silence.

The bartender fished around frantically in his pockets for a moment and produced a small black oblong device not even as large as the palm of his own hand. He pressed a button with one thumb and held the thing up to his head.

"Yes?"

"The scenario is underway," said an unidentifiable male voice. There was a blip and the line was dead.

The bartender sighed and slapped the device down on the bar-top with a heavy sigh. "Calling to let me know what I'm missing or something, eh? Asshole."

"Shut your whining, Shinji," said a harsh female voice from somewhere in the shadows behind the booths. "You'll be working soon enough, don't worry. Though I don't know _why_ you're looking forward to it, of all things."

"Like you're not?"

The shadowed lady in the corner grinned a most sinister grin.

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It was raining. Thin, light rain, but in such vast quantities that it utterly drenched everything.

Natsuki growled. "Fucking fire alarm." She practically dove through the open office doorway and blasted hell out of an innocent water cooler that just happened to be right next to the Orphan she was hunting. In an office building, of all places.

The creature evaded yet again, throwing out a deadly swarm of multi-coloured energy shards behind it as it fled. Natsuki barely had time to throw herself behind a wall to avoid being skewered in several unpleasant ways at once. The concrete surface flayed apart under the sudden onslaught like paper under a sand-blaster, but the wall held relatively firm all the same, providing temporary protection at least. When the noise finally died down out she leapt once more with her trigger fingers twitching spastically, sending blinding blue shots peppering across the floor and up the far wall as she tracked upwards after the silhouette of that elusive beast.

Up it dove like a bird taking flight, straight through the flimsy plaster ceiling, a swirling cloud of white dust and debris churning up behind it to cover its escape. Natsuki was already rolling back to her feet towards the emergency stairwell, heart pounding in her chest, knuckles white as she squeezed tight around her twin weapons.

She was on the roof in no time at all, dark night sweeping in past the artificial light that enveloped the rest of the building. That dark inhuman figure was already loping steadily away from the hole it had punched up through the roof and heading towards the edge, its broad bat-like arms flapping like wings. Again she fired, and missed. Troubling indeed, the thing seemed to have some sort of repulsive barrier that sent an otherwise well-aimed shot off course. She snapped away one pistol and a small black orb appeared in its place in her hand that, when thrown, yielded similarly unimpressive results, though it did blow a neat circular hole into the ledge around the roof edge.

The thing leapt upward again, this time into open air, spreading its arms out wide. Natsuki ran to the edge to watch as it escaped, drifting lazily across to a nearby tower building and relative safety.

She cursed, loudly.

Then a screaming noise came rushing over her and a cluster of metallic shards rained down upon the concrete all around, forcing her back away from the ledge. The Orphan let off another cloud of thin green smoke, and from the swirling mass hurtled upward more of those thick, razor-sharp chunks, arcing up high and then dropping down on the distant office building. Natsuki was forced into a dodging frenzy, evading countless volleys of shards with little or no cover in sight, and no pause for her to return fire.

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High above the city, safely beyond visual range from the ground, though not so far as to infringe on Tokyo International's airspace, something much smaller than a plane was flying casually about. At first glance, it may have looked like no more than a very large bird, orange and red and yellow plumage like a winged ball of fire.

Mai shifted her body weight over to one side and wheeled round in a wide sweeping turn, hair fluttering wildly in the wind. Her limbs outstretched to either side, her Element at her wrists projecting flaming wings around her arms to keep her in steady flight so far from the ground.

"Can you see anything?" she yelled over the wind noise.

Mikoto's legs squeezed a little tighter around her waist. Thankfully the girl was so skinny that she weighed practically nothing, though bony knees digging into Mai's hips was not exactly comfortable. "I see smoke," replied the young girl, pointing with one arm over towards a tall tower building deep in the Tokyo business district. "Green smoke."

"Orphan," Mai affirmed. "Hang on tight."

Mikoto folded herself up along the redhead's front and clung around Mai's neck with both arms as they angled down over towards the ground, banking hard. Mai craned her neck to one side and squinted hard in the direction that her diminutive young friend had indicated, but Mikoto's eyes were clearly much better than were her own.

"Can you hit it from this distance?"

Mikoto shook her head. "Drop me behind."

"From this height, you're crazy!" Despite her obvious concern, the young girl was already climbing around Mai's mid-section to crouch atop the redhead's back like a cat ready to pounce.

"It'll be fine. Just fly over it."

Mai sighed heavily and pushed herself faster towards the tower. "I really hope you know what you're doing."

Mikoto pointed with one finger. "Aim for the wire." Mai followed along her line of sight… The tower in question was another of those huge square parking towers that had been popping up so rampantly in Tokyo lately, taller even than the office buildings around it. From one corner of the roof up some several hundred metres ran an almost invisible steel cable, a tether for an advertising blimp that floated high above the city with all sorts of bright neon signs plastered across its surface.

Mai growled. "You _are_ crazy!" Nevertheless, she steered off towards the bobbing silver hulk at best speed, Mikoto clinging tightly to her back. Before she knew it, the weight on her back was shifting again as Mikoto stood up.

"Closer!"

Mai dove and swooped in like a hawk underneath the giant balloon, so close that Mikoto felt her hair standing on end as if reaching up towards the thing, static jumping between her fingers. As the cable passed by with a whoosh, she turned and leapt out, limbs out in a freefall position.

The tip of her sword caught the cable first and yanked her violently in towards it. She barely had time to swing her feet round to the side, shifting her body into a spiralling course down around the cable, only her sword slicing through the steel to slow her descent in the slightest. It was more than a little tricky keeping track of her opponent while she was spinning round that cable, the ground rushing up towards her all the time. Her stomach was doing the most bizarre things and her whole body felt so light.

Before too long, her feet met the cable instead of air and started pedalling away furiously, trying not to burn out her skin on the rough steel surface as she fell at some ungodly speed. Her sword came up and back over her head in both hands, ready to strike. The roof of the tower was barely ten metres below when she pushed off the cable with all the power in those deceptively skinny thighs and shot forth like a lance, a feral howl escaping her lips.

The shadowed beast turned to face her as she descended like a bullet down atop it. Unfortunately, the first swipe of that unstoppable sword found some smoothly curved barrier that simply diverted the blade down to one side away from the creature. Tendrils of blackness rushed out at her.

Mikoto danced on them, almost contemptuously, smacking every one with a good hard kick from one foot or the other, her excessive momentum pummelling her feet into the Orphan instead of burying her headfirst in the underlying concrete. Her arms swung back over her head for another strike but no opening presented itself, and those countless limbs never once let up. Her small, agile body was losing ground, bouncing back further and further with each strike she deflected.

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Natsuki peered up over the pitifully short ledge she had huddled behind and blinked, several times in fact.

The creature had stopped belching out those huge clouds of metal shrapnel and was now, apparently, busy thrashing some unidentified small object at close-range instead. Its back was to her, and its attention clearly elsewhere.

She looked up. Something small and distant and vaguely orange glowed in the sky high overhead. Natsuki grinned.

Then she snapped her fingers. "Wouldn't do not to take advantage of such a kindly presented opportunity, would it?" Her pistols disappeared in a flash and she grasped her fingers around a different weapon. At her command, the gun materialised in her hand with a sharp pop; all twelve inches of it, a long, cylindrical device much like any modern handgun, though distinctly different in certain ways, not the least of which the design. Natsuki levelled the thing towards that distant target and closed her eyes.

Her mind exploded into colour behind her eyelids, that despicable thing in the centre. The image slowly crawled forward as she focused harder, her fingers squeezing tight on the false metal in her hands. She concentrated until she could see that familiar faint red glow on its back.

Then she pulled the trigger, and held. The thing juddered in her hands but her aim stayed steady as it let out a long, low humming noise. Blue light whirled around the muzzle of the thing, growing brighter and stronger. When she finally let go, the whole thing bucked backwards in her hands with considerable force, and a shockingly blue bolt of energy leapt screaming from that wide barrel, streaking across the space between her and her distant enemy with frightening speed.

Mikoto had just enough time to see something glaringly blue hurtling towards her…and then time slowed down. Suddenly, it was as if someone had dumped the whole world in treacle, all except for her brain. She panicked for a moment or two, but her common sense quickly caught up and reminded her of the impending doom.

With a colossal effort, she turned on her toes and pushed with all her might against those frozen black tentacles, leaping up and away from the creature. Her body slipped through the invisible fluid resistance like a hot knife cutting through butter, in slow motion. It was definitely the strangest sensation.

She tucked her head down into a roll, shoulder hitting the concrete roof first with some considerable force…and then everything was running again, faster than normal it seemed. She was thrown into a somersault by an explosion barely metres behind her that singed the skin of her feet, but besides that nothing seemed damaged.

"That…was strange."

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Mai looked rather concerned, as well she should. Natsuki was blushing furiously and averting her gaze. Mikoto didn't seem to care, almost-naked and lounging haphazardly back against the metal railing with her sword resting beside her, her "most important parts" covered just barely by a flimsy little piece of white cloth Mai had bought somewhere nearby not minutes ago. Needless to say, she had flat out refused to wear the bra, for various reasons.

"Just put it back on already!" Mai snapped at her, again.

"No," insisted Mikoto, in a tone that suggested that that was all the argument she needed. It was beginning to look that way, too.

Natsuki fumed, mostly to herself. "This is ridiculous. She's just a child. You really shouldn't be getting so worked up over it."

"Oh, then _you_ can dress her!"

"That's not what I…" She trailed off.

Mai pointed at her accusingly, grinning yet again. "Pervert!"

"Shut up, damnit!"

"Not like you haven't seen other girls naked before, right? I mean…you _do_ bathe, don't you?"

Natsuki sniffed and turned her back on them both again. Mai just looked pleased with herself, as usual.

"But besides that…what are we going to do about it?"

"Well, we could just stick a collar on her and take her home like this…" Mikoto blinked confusedly and looked up at the redhead.

"You're disgusting."

"It's a joke! Kami, you're so uptight sometimes, Kuga."

"And anyway, I was talking about the Orphan!"

Mai paused. "Oh…right. That hole." She looked across the roof to where a large part of the concrete had been seemingly evaporated into thin air, leaving a wide circular gap where the Orphan had once stood. "Just what the heck did you do to it anyway?"

"It's dead. That's all that matters." Natsuki turned, arms crossed angrily over her chest, pouting as usual. "That and getting out of here before the police come and arrest us for property destruction. And public indecency!" she finished off, stabbing a finger accusatorily at the not-dressed teenage girl lounging nonchalantly nearby.

Mai looked beside her at the half-nude young girl and sighed. "I think she looks nice, myself. Those really suit her, don't you think?"

"Your fashion sense is going to get us all into trouble, Tokiha."

"I'm just trying to think positively, unlike some people." Lilac eyes drifted slowly up and down Natsuki's body.

"What…what is it?" she stammered, blushing again. "Stop looking at me like that."

"Oh, relax, I already told you I don't swing that way." Mai shook her head slowly. "But you're roughly the same size, you two…"

Natsuki grunted and turned her head. "Couldn't she just wear _your_ clothes instead?"

Mai grinned impishly. "Want me to walk home in my underwear, huh? Kinky."

Natsuki just blushed some more and crossed her arms. Then she fiddled with the zipper on her suit to make sure it was securely fastened, just in case, and that made her even more self-conscious, and so it went. Mai was grinning like the proverbial cat all the while, of course, which only compounded the problem.

"Just wondering if she'll fit into that suit of yours."

"Absolutely not!"

Mai held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay…never mind. I can just buy a beach towel from that store down the street and I'll take her home in that." She turned and walked towards the stairwell…

"Wait," a hesitant voice behind her. She paused and turned on her heel, looking back with a curious expression. "I have…some spare clothes…in my bike." Natsuki ground one boot into the concrete awkwardly as she spoke, pouting loudly as ever and staring off in some other direction. "As long as I get them back…"

Mai was about to say something when Natsuki looked down at her watch and frowned. "I should go now, anyway. There's somewhere I have to be later tonight."

"Fujino-san, eh?" teased the redhead.

For once, it didn't work.

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Yukino leaned back until her head touched the grass, and stared lazily up at the sky above. Her eyes stopped squinting with that darned screen out of sight at last. She felt all the muscles in her fingers tingling slightly from all the overworking they had done the past few hours, and wriggled them until the feeling of a cool breeze brushing her fingertips faded back in. For a moment, her eyelids were sliding shut under their own weight, unconsciousness threatening at the edge of her mind.

"…and that stupid board of directors, I swear, they're trying to illuminate me." A familiar voice wrenched her out of her almost-sleep. She blinked it off with a quick yawn and then backtracked… "Just the other day-"

"-Alienate, Haruka-chan," she corrected, patiently as ever.

Haruka crossed her arms over her bountiful chest and pouted. "I know!" Then the mustard-haired woman leaned over her "personal assistant" and gave her a gentle tap on the nose with one perfectly shaped fingertip. "You know, I've always wondered…just how you always know what I mean. How do you do it anyway?"

Yukino levelled her most alluring stare up at her partner, which was more really badly disguised adoration in effect, and her smile widened a little. "I know Haruka-chan better than you know yourself."

Haruka blushed. It was like having something small and adorable giving her "the eye" only Yukino had it down to an art form. "Yukino…silly girl."

They lapsed back into empty silence for a while, or rather Yukino relaxed back on the grass some more, half-awake while Haruka very quietly ranted on to herself about this and that and whatever. Somehow, the mere sound of that agitated voice was more than enough to keep the brunette drifting somewhere wonderfully relaxing right between consciousness and sleep.

Suddenly, she sat up. One finger nudged her glasses back up her nose as she squinted at the screen in her lap, trying to focus. Checked the date…

"What is it, Yukino? Did you forget something?"

"Your birthday!" yelped the other girl. A look of shocked dismay swamped her face. "How…how could I forget…Haruka-chan's birthday! Oh, but it's just been such a busy week! We had that stupid meeting with the governor, and all those negotiations deals, and the shareholders' meeting…"

An arm curled back around her shoulders and soon she found her head buried into her favourite pillow, only a thin cotton sheet keeping that sumptuous warmth from her cheeks. Her body started relaxing again all by itself and her arguments melted away.

"My birthday isn't till the weekend, silly," Haruka purred as she stroked her fingers through the other woman's hair. "You've got plenty of time. And besides, that makes tomorrow our anniversary." She just couldn't keep from grinning hugely at the sight of a sparkling gold band wrapped around her middle finger, glinting as it peeked through fine auburn locks.

"Our…anniversary…isn't it?"

"So right now it's _my_ turn, okay? You'll see, I'll get you back for what you did to me."

Memories of lavender perfume and lilies and green silk drifted through her mind, and Yukino sighed deeply. She put her arms around her wife's mid-section and nuzzled into that inviting cleavage a little more, shamelessly one might say, even though they were out in public. For once, she didn't seem to care.

"I guess I could just enjoy it a little more for now…" Before she could finish, the sound of Haruka's heartbeat all around and that melodic voice singing softly had lulled her to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4 : Unstable Element

Tokyo District 6 was a fairly up-market place, especially for the commercial buyers, square kilometres of expansive green belt interlaced with sprawling bands of suburban-style family housing. The District itself covered mostly rolling hills, which the developers had left in to add to the scenic appearance, and the foliage was so thick that from the air it gave an impression of the surrounding forest slowly invading the city. Interspersed between the trees and rows of houses were a sparse few larger buildings, all several storeys and generously large though nothing too outsized, in keeping with the more relaxed architecture outside of the city centre. They were all generally the same square-shaped grey concrete box, slope-roofed and wide windows. The Bank building was no exception; it stood comfortably beside a large main road, huge glass panel windows taking up most of the first storey front wall facing onto the road with a set of tall glass double-doors set into a gold-painted metal frame. Fluorescent lighting hung in narrow box strips from the front wall up above the entranceway, illuminating the pavement outside and spilling onto the nearby road. Yet more, brilliant white light poured out from within at all hours, day or night, and the hazy orange glow in the sky from streetlights and the swarming mass of Tokyo all around gave a strangely warm, late evening sort of vibe to the place, especially on such a mild summer night.

Natsuki checked her watch again. The softly glowing green panel said it had just gone midnight. If she was going to be logical and assume that the voice on the phone had been telling the truth, then in about another ten minutes that calm, peaceful bank building across the road was going to be mysteriously evacuated. Just looking at the place, she could see no signs of warning, no indication that anyone strange was happening or that anything alarming was expected. Just inside the lobby was a wide glass-screened desk just as with most banks, and only a single very calm-looking employee sitting waiting behind it, leaning a little tiredly on the counter. Everything looked perfectly normal.

Five minutes later, something started bleeping furiously. Natsuki startled out of her semi-conscious state leaning up against a streetlight and almost fell over before her balance kicked in again. It sounded like an alarm, yes, but not quite, though it did appear to be coming from the bank. Inside the building, the lonely employee was blinking and looking around, thoroughly puzzled.

A second man appeared through the door behind him and started talking, to which the employee replied, although Natsuki could hear none of it. The manager, as she presumed him to be from the first man's body language, looked just as confused as did the first man and between the two of them, they exchanged unheard words and plenty of mystified gestures.

Not a minute later, the bleeping stopped, though it was still somewhat unclear just where it had been coming from in the first place.

Natsuki was quite completely bemused by now. An alarm, or so it seemed, had just gone off and then stopped shortly thereafter. The employee in the bank didn't seem too worried about it, beyond being just as confused as she, and nothing was really happening.

She sighed heavily and leant back up against the streetlight again, watching intently for any signs of further action.

At twelve fifteen precisely, down to the last second, something definitely did happen. That same beeping alarm went off again and, just as the teller was getting up to see what was going on, the ceiling started raining. _That_ got results. In just a few seconds, the doors were open and a pitifully small group of employees, including the manager from before, came rushing out of the building quite soaked.

"Wow," Natsuki muttered darkly to herself. "Some opening…" She looked long and hard over the building but, as her earlier scouting had proven, there were no windows on the others sides and the front entrance was the only way in which was at that moment being blocked by all those employees.

Something bumped against her foot.

Natsuki looked down for a second. There on the ground, where she really should have noticed it before was something small, square and black. She bent down to inspect a little closer and found it to be a leather pouch of some kind. When she picked it up, it flipped open like a book and revealed some sort of laminated card within. On one side, stitched to the leather, was an identification card sans picture, on the other side was a small sheet of plastic printed with long strings of numbers and free hanging between the two "covers" was a green holographic card.

Natsuki checked the ID card first…

"Tokyo District Materials Handling Commission?"

Someone had a strange sense of humour.

Well, 'act casual' the mysterious voice had told her. If nothing else, at least it was worth a try. She tucked the wallet into a pocket inside her suit jacket and then strode resolvedly over towards the building.

"Hey!" someone shouted when she walked straight past the crowd. "Hey, you there! Miss, you can't go in there."

She turned on her heel, making sure to toss her hair impressively without making it look like she was trying, and gave the owner of that voice a good hard glare. "I'm afraid I have to," she told him in a stern voice. "I'm from the M.H.C. and we're aware that there are a few rather delicate items in your vault. I've been sent to keep an eye on them."

The manager, or he whom Natsuki had presumed to be the manager, stepped forward. "First I've heard of anything like this," he replied suspiciously. Natsuki flashed him an almost contemptuous look.

"It's a classified matter," she said, as if that was as much explanation as was needed.

"The vault is locked. I can't let you in there, even if you are from the Commission; some of our clients have extremely valuable property in there."

Natsuki took the wallet out of her jacket and showed it off impatiently. "I have the authority to order you…" The manager shook his head. "…but that doesn't matter, does it? All I need is assurance for my employers that the items in question are safe inside your vault, and photographic proof is all they'll take."

The manager fished into one of his own pockets for a moment and produced a set of keys, which he tossed over towards the woman. "The green key opens the door to the back of the building," he explained with a slightly softer expression. "But the vault key isn't on there…just in case you were wondering."

Natsuki smirked back at him. "Thank you for your cooperation." With that, she turned her back to the small crowd and proceeded inside the building.

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The little black alarm clock on the desk beside the bed was blaring away unbearably loud, filling the small bedroom up with the noise of some unreasonably lively Japanese morning radio host or other. It was impossible to tell if he really was talking loudly just to be heard over the rambunctious pop music in the background, or if it was simply the alarm itself turned up too far. A single hand reached up out of the disorderly mass of tangled yellow sheets and slapped about at the thing, failing completely in hitting the "OFF" button. Eventually, the hand gave up and whacked the radio off the desk to the floor with a loud thud, upon which it shut up.

Approximately fifteen seconds later, it started again. A string of curses started from somewhere in that thick pile of bedding and didn't stop, getting only louder and angrier as they progressed, and ever more profane. The sheets slowly folded back down along the bed until a head, or more precisely a large lump of unruly crimson hair, could be seen. The head, clearly female from the shape and form of that roughly triangular face, lifted itself clear of the bed and leaned right over the edge, upside-down, trying to see the radio a little better.

The owner of the head felt her feet slipping, and before she knew it she was upside-down herself, balanced on her head on the floor still half in-bed. The sudden concussive shock to her cranium did nothing to help the splitting hangover already molesting her consciousness and she groaned, long and hard, then started swearing again for good measure.

The clock said five thirty.

Five. Fucking. Thirty.

In the fucking morning.

"Midori," chided a familiar voice that the bed-bound woman knew was only in her head. "You really need to get up, already! You'll be late for school," it chuckled teasingly.

"Youko…" She sighed, smiling ruefully as she did practically every morning, and went about extricating herself from the mess that was her bed. It took, unsurprisingly, longer than it had the last time, much as it did every time. Once it was all over and she stood at the foot of the bed, naked bar the cheapest shorts she could afford, Midori got the profound impression that she had forgotten something hugely important.

She looked up at the wall above her bed. It was the only wall in the room still blank, no sign of brackets or posters or pin-boards or the like as had the other three. It would have been as nude as she almost was herself, had it not been for the messily scrawled symbol she had painted on it by hand; a huge red ring with a narrow gap cut out, a thick line running through one side next to said gap, and a simple red dot in the centre of the ring.

"Okay!" said Midori to herself animatedly, snapping her fingers. "Today, I'm going to show those assholes who they're messing with! Right Kan-chan?"

Before she could get an answer, the door opened and in barged a dark-haired young man with a huge stack of books cradled in his arms. "Midori-san!" he yelped a little helplessly, teetering over to one side.

Midori leapt into action, heedless of her rather compromised state of dress, and just managed to catch the toppling pile by the very narrowest breadth. The mug of coffee that had been sitting atop the stack went to the floor and shattered, splashing luke-warm brown liquid in an uneven splodge over the carpet.

She ignored the young man apologising wildly to her and staring at her breasts, and trying not to look like he was staring, and simultaneously backing out of her bedroom and bowing which only made him blush more since it put his face inches from her chest. She shut the door on him, sighed again, and then kicked the remains of the nth broken coffee mug up against the nearest wall out of the way.

"Hopeless boy, really," she told herself. "I don't know _why_ I keep him around."

When she opened the first book, naturally the biggest one, and found it was actually a hollowed out box painted to look like a book, in which sat a small bottle full of some clear liquid, Midori's face lit up with a self-conscious grin. "Am I really getting so predictable?"

"You've been predictable ever since we met, Midori," said that invisible voice in her head again.

Determined to throw off Youko's nagging little motherly speeches in the back of her mind, the redheaded woman threw on the first sweater she saw, which just so happened to be clean, and then slumped herself down in the small metal stool next to her bedroom wall. She span and faced what might once have been a wall, now a huge mess of tangled wires, cables, mounting brackets, faced with mainly pin-boards and slate, cork boards and calendars, a few maps of various places large and small, and a few extremely inexpensive monitor screens that showed little more than static at the moment.

"It's the seventeenth," she said to herself as she read off the nearest calendar, scribbling out the number with red marker pen. "The satellite should be passing over China this afternoon… Maybe by tomorrow, then…" She turned her head and continued, a little louder, "Oi! Kan-chan! You awake?"

"I do not have an "awake" mode, mistress," replied a rough synthesised voice from a large stripped-down speaker attached to the far wall.

Midori frowned and tossed a discarded paper cup over her shoulder at the source of the voice. "You really need a sense of humour, Kan-chan."

"Emotional simulation processes are illegal by current international AI laws, not that I really need to remind you. Indeed," said the computer in what would almost have been a cynical tone of voice, had it had actual feelings. "I'm certain yet another infraction would not trouble you in the slightest, mistress. In fact, I'm sure that the Tokyo police force would enjoy watching your Interpol wanted rating climbing back up the chart again. They do seem to be rather proud of you."

Midori smirked to herself and started unscrewing the top on her miniature vodka bottle. "So, I take it from your witty rejoinder that you've been working hard while I was asleep?"

"Yes, mistress. I've been keeping close tabs on the worm our associate delivered for us. It broke past the cipher system with little problem at all; in fact, I don't think I've ever seen a Gellard code so elegantly applied as this one. I do feel a little jealous."

"You're much smarter than a worm, Kan-chan," reassured Midori, more just out of habit than to comfort the AI's non-existent feelings. She tossed half of the contents of that tiny bottle down her throat and coughed harshly at the after-effects. "Worms can't do half the things you do."

"Truly, your words fill me with joy, mistress."

"But seriously now, Kan-chan," Midori insisted, shuffling the seat along the narrow rail that ran around the edge of the room until she faced a large holographic relief map of Asia. "If the code was worth what we agreed, then go ahead and pay the man."

"The worm did not succeed in its intended function, mistress."

Midori shrugged, a look of clearly faked innocence on her face.

"_But_," continued the computer, "I _did_ spot several rather interesting code fluctuations in the area around Prometheus' floating net construct. I'd be willing to hazard a guess, if I were so inclined, that the construct is precisely the multi-processor that you've been so diligently searching for all these months."

Midori crossed her arms smugly over her chest, but declined the chance to boast yet again. "If Prometheus are hiding a multiple-base processor underneath a resident network AI construct, then they must be hiding it from someone _inside_ their own organisation." Midori rubbed a hand over her forehead and sighed, again. "Which makes no sense at all. Prometheus have nothing to hide from themselves. Their security should be _ex_ternal not _in_ternal."

"May I make a few wild speculations, mistress?"

"Speculate away, Kan-chan. You're the one with the technical know-how, after all." Midori leaned back into her chair until the backrest clicked right down almost horizontal and started fiddling with a small trackball set into one armrest, manipulating the map before her to show various different areas around the world. What the little green markers meant, only Midori herself knew, but wherever something _really_ suspicious was going on, there was a little miniature replica of that strange almost-but-not-quite-a-question-mark symbol plastered on the map.

"Well, first of all, Prometheus deal in technologies that the outside world has simply never even heard of. They would be wise to guard their secrets well even from their own employees, not to mention the industrial enemies they have around the world with the expertise to hack into their network from outside. A de-centralised networked processor capable of actual self-aware intelligence would be the find of the decade, so to speak. They could lose a lot of money."

"Not to mention it'd piss off Intel. Haven't they been pouring money into floating net intelligence for years now?"

"I would gladly explain why the Rörschack hybrid cell undergoes fractal degradation when they push the voltage too high…"

Midori waved her hands frantically. "Too much jargon, Kan-chan! I'm not a computer like you, remember?" She chuckled. "Besides, I'm not selling you to anyone, Kan-chan. That creativity sub-processor of yours is worth more than anyone could offer."

"Hopefully worth the several truckloads of liquid silver you exchanged for it, mistress," retorted the computer, and Midori could only laugh again.

"I assume that's not your best idea though, eh Kan-chan?"

"I think that, perhaps, just perhaps…" Kannon was silent for a few moments, which was certainly unusual, so long that Midori actually felt a little bubble of concern growing in her stomach.

"Kan-chan? What is it?"

"I think," continued the computer in an oddly subdued "voice," "that the self-aware AI hidden in Prometheus' network system might actually be the exact same multi-processor AI that you've been looking for, mistress; a fully conscious neural net."

Midori bolted upright in her chair, then winced when the backrest snapped up and thwacked her in the back. "You mean…" she trailed off, rubbing the small of her back with one hand and frantically scrolling the map screen with the other. "Prometheus might actually have a functioning Slave unit already?"

"Unlikely. They have no experience in biotechnologies or genetics. A completed Slave at this stage is out of the question unless they're already attached to another contributor who _does_ have access to genetic reconstructive technology."

Midori zoomed down over the mid-southwest area of North America until a large, suspicious dark blotch could be made out somewhere in the middle of Arizona. "Who do we know who does?"

"The only viable option for Prometheus at this time would be SiltWorks, Germany. They're based in biochemical and genetics and have a small enough financial framework to appreciate support from a large organisation such as Prometheus, not to mention the technology to support an actual Slave production."

Midori grinned, not her favourite kind of grin but definitely close, the grin she used whenever several large and annoying bits of the puzzle that her life had become suddenly fell into place. She cracked her knuckles. "Then let's investigate, Kan-chan! Who can we work with in Germany?"

"Yes, mistress. I'll bring up your list of European based associates now…"

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Heat.

The heat was everywhere.

The heat was all around her, burning into her, searing through her, consuming her. It tore into her skin like a wild beast, ripped its way into and straight through her, flaying her apart like so much useless lace and ribbon in the face of some formless raging fury.

How eloquent, she thought for a moment.

Then suddenly, something cold was on her chest, latched deep into her. She was suffocating. Agony lancing into her arms and legs like needles…

Nina woke screaming, wailing, clawing out with her hands and ripping the sheet apart with her fingernails. She thrashed wildly, tearing needles from all sorts of places and leaving thin, weak red trails splashing out after them. She didn't notice her blood spilling over the bed-sheets, or all those holes sealing themselves again in seconds. Her fingers clasped around the rubber guard over her lower face, and she tore that off too, yanking the tube out of her nose and retching as it passed the back of her throat.

The first spasm stopped in her diaphragm but a second followed quickly, then a third, setting off a chain reaction until the semi-conscious girl was curled over, head between her knees, emptying her stomach onto the bed between her feet. When she finally stopped convulsing, her body weight drifted to one side and she fell, lying limply on her side still curled up in a foetal position, drooling down one cheek and shuddering.

When she finally came to again some million years later she was soaked in sweat, sticky and uncomfortable, her feet dunked in that disgusting puddle on the bed, and her hands still wouldn't stop quivering.

"Where am I," she tried to say, but her voice caught in her throat so raw and dry after all the heaving she had done. She tried to raise her head but it was so heavy, like her whole body were made of lead.

An orderly found her not too long after and made a big fuss, but nobody seemed too concerned. The sheets were removed, Nina was put on a trolley and moved into the adjacent room which just so happened to be empty, and then someone sedated her again before she could protest further. She just managed to spot a large pitcher of water being left on the table by the bed before her eyelids sagged shut again.

For a long time, there was nothing. Dark, empty, silent nothing.

Then there was a voice.

"Nina?" whispered the voice.

So hesitant, so unsure of itself, like a confused and panicked young child asking after its mother. Nina screwed her face up in her pseudo-sleep and tried to ignore it.

"Nina…chan?"

That voice…that was familiar.

She opened her eyes, very slowly since the room was filled with bright blinding white light from the strips in the ceiling, and tried to lift her head to see. All she saw was a vague, distorted swirl of coloured blobs.

"Nina-chan?" repeated the voice, suddenly sounding that much more alarmed. A hand brushed her shoulder.

"Fa…" Her voice broke again and she started coughing, until something large and warm buried itself against her lower chest with a wild sob. Nina blinked, startled out of her coughing fit it seemed, and tried to sit up. As she blinked repeatedly, her vision slowly started to slur together into something a little more cohesive than just jumbled colour, shapes forming vague at first and gradually sharpening. When she looked down, there was a head in her lap, thick waves of long brown-red hair flowing down either side of her legs and pooling on the bed.

"A…ari…ka?"

The other girl didn't answer, probably couldn't. Nina could feel dampness seeping through the thin green sheet and slicking the skin of her abdomen. Arika's shoulders were twitching up and down as she cried silently, her entire body shaking softly. She tried to put a reassuring hand on the girl's head but her arms were limp, dead.

"You're…you're alive… _I'm_ alive! But I thought…"

Arika lifted her head up slowly to look her in the eye. Her face was a mess, all red and scrunched up and smeared with tears still streaming down her cheeks. There was something awful behind her eyes that hit Nina like a lightning bolt to the chest, but the words to explain it escaped her.

"I'm sorry I k…killed you," Arika began as imploringly as she could. The sheer absurdity of it caught up to her before she could continue, however, and she started sniggering.

"You're sorry you killed me?" Nina tried to sound as sharp and unforgiving as ever but it didn't really work. She smiled down at the ball of emotion in her lap and, finally, lifted one hand up to beat her lightly on the head. "That must be the craziest thing you've ever said to me…dummy."

Arika opened her mouth again and a bark of a laugh came out, followed by more. Her eyes were streaming, but at least it was an improvement on the bawling she had been doing a few hours before.

"I hope you're sorry for getting my robe burned up, too."

Arika started bashing one fist against the bed-frame, howling then and rolling side to side slightly, her face still buried in Nina's lap. The dark-haired girl felt her face heating a little when she finally noticed what the redhead was inadvertently doing, but it really wasn't worth ruining such a good mood. Now that she had a moment to stop and actually think about it, she noticed Arika's own robe was gone too, replaced with a very simple piece of green cloth that tied shut at the back and left most of the girl's back half bare. Not exactly something becoming a young Otome like herself.

There was a really touching, emotional scene brewing up between the two, something seriously deep and meaningful, some world-changing revelations. Unfortunately, before it could happen, the door burst open and an unidentified person in a bulky white hazardous material suit complete with shaded faceplate rushed into the room.

Arika looked up and blinked, just in time to get a face-full of thick beige foam from the end of what looked like a handheld water cannon. Nina was stunned for a moment, but that familiar feeling of righteous vengeance was broiling within her like a caged animal. She grabbed the redhead by her shoulders and pulled her close. As something thick and sludgy splattered against her back and started solidifying, gluing her to the bed, her lips found the GEM in Arika's left ear.

"Yumemiya Arika," she whispered, which was all she could manage. "In my name, release your power!"

When all that blinding light died down it was only her training robe after all, but it was much better than nothing at all. The foam shattered from her face, revealing a most determined look of rage on Arika's features.

"Oh shit!" yelled a muffled and indistinctly masculine voice from behind the faceplate. "GEM system is active, I repeat, GEM system is active! I think we-.." Arika shut him up with a good solid kick to the gut that sent him toppling over onto his face on the floor, groaning and wheezing and trying to breathe in. She lifted the steel-silver baton over her head for a nice hard whack but Nina stopped her with a yelp.

"Forget about that! We need to get out of here, first. Wherever here is…" She looked around at the room, at all the strange things sitting about in strange places. "I'm not even sure where we are."

"This isn't WindBloom," replied Arika in a very terse voice, lowering her weapon cautiously to her side. She gave the prone man a kick in the ribs instead, just to make sure he didn't get up any time soon, and perhaps to work a little of her own anger out in the process. While Nina searched from her vantage point on the bed, Arika hefted the downed man by his legs over against one wall of the room, then cracked the door open as narrowly as she could and peeked outside.

"Or Artai. Or any other country I've ever been to. I've never seen architecture quite like this…"

"Shit!" Arika interrupted, slamming the door shut and fiddling with the catch, desperately trying to engage the lock with an almost panicked expression on her face.

Nina glared at her a tad angrily. "What now?"

"You don't want to know!" Arika turned on her heel and, having given up on the door, started looking frantically around the room. Her eyes caught on the window, barred across with narrow metal strips, and she winced. "How badly are you hurt, Nina-chan? Can you walk?"

Nina felt an "oh shit" of her own coming, or perhaps an exasperated sigh; the girl could still get herself in some terribly stupid situations after all. She shifted her weight over to one side and slid her legs off the bed. "I can stand. I'm not sure about walking…" She lifted herself up, weight on her feet, and then toppled forward slightly. Slender, muscular arms were wrapped about her before she could even register surprise.

"I'll just have to carry you!" declared Arika, irrationally cheerful once again. She held the dark-haired girl against her in one arm and swung her baton with the other, extending out to punch through the window. Metal twisted and snapped, splintered off, a burst of glass and steel shards showering out of the room and down on the street below. There was a thumping at the door but neither looked back. Nina was swung like a featherweight round to rest against Arika's back, arms around the redhead's collar, and held on tight as they leapt up into open space. Arika's GEM was glowing brightly as she burst out of the hole that had once been a window, the wooden door shattering open seconds behind her. More white-suited and foam-wielding figures rushed into the room only to catch a glimpse of the pair fading away into the distance over the Tokyo skyline.

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Midori windmilled her arms as she toppled backwards off her chair and onto the floor with a hefty thud. Lights were flashing and sirens were blaring at her all of a sudden and the holographic map was going proverbially bat-shit.

"Kannon!" she yelled as she struggled back into her seat, rubbing at her shoulder blades with one hand. "Kannon, what the hell is that alarm?"

"That," replied the computer calmly as ever, "is the surveillance program you had planted in the GPS system last year."

"The fuck?" Midori blinked. "Then that could only mean…something I forget." She brought the nearest bottle to her lips and started chugging.

"It's picking up a short range radio transmission, a localised binary signal it would seem, of all things."

Midori almost fell off her chair again. She chucked her now empty bottle carelessly over her shoulder and stared at the map as it skittered about crazily, focusing in and out. "How much did we pay for that thing? I swear, if it's going to just… Wait…" She paused for a moment while her brain switched back on, and getting a good yawn while she was at it. "You mean the sort of signal that those brand new highly illegal nano-machines respond to?"

"The very same, mistress. And it's coming from somewhere in the Tokyo downtown area."

Midori blinked again.

"Fuck!" She leapt up out of her chair and dashed over to what had once been a wardrobe, now simply a huge mess with some clothes in it. "Then I've gotta get out there and find the bastards! If I can get photographical proof that our "friends" are playing with illegal nanotechnology right under the public's nose, it'll be one huge step closer to exposing the whole project."

"Need I remind you, mistress, that it doesn't necessarily mean that the transponder in question…"

Midori wasn't listening. She scrambled crazily to dress herself in the neatest pair of jeans she could find and then threw a loose green button-up sweater on over the skimpy bikini top she had rescued earlier. Her hair went back in a single rough ponytail held together with an elastic band, not the most attractive of dress styles but it didn't really matter. She snagged the plastic wrap-around gas mask from where it hung on a hook beside her bedroom door and started working it down over her face.

"Kan-chan, did that fool Reito fix the damn car yet?"

"Your…_vehicle_," the computer replied in what could almost pass for a contemptuous tone of voice, "is ready for action, mistress. I do hope you're a little more careful with it this time though."

Midori grinned. "I put a lot of work into that car! It'll take more than a few little scrapes to stop her."

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Natsuki was…well 'bothered' would be a good word for it. She sat back a little in the booth she currently occupied and pushed the empty glass away across the table, the last few dredges of half-melted ice cream and green lemonade (why _did_ they even make green lemonade, of all things?) forming a sludgy greenish mess in the bottom. Her left leg rose practically of its own accord and folded slowly over her right, shifting her skirt a little higher, though nowhere quite near dangerously so just yet. The sunlight streaming in through the wide panel windows beside her was warming on the bare skin of her arms and legs and across her neck and collar, the low cut and short sleeves of her thin, sky blue top most tempting to the eyes but leaving practically everything to the imagination.

The waitress came back after a minute or two and whisked the empty glass away, but not before Natsuki could molest her for a second. Or would that be her third? The green-haired young woman smiled perkily and disappeared back to wherever it was a waitress went, leaving Natsuki to her thoughts again.

Bothered she most definitely was. That bank job had been easy, shockingly easy in fact. The mysterious key she had been given had opened, of all things, a small black lock-box hidden in one of the employees' desks. Inside had been a thick sheaf of papers, all of them profoundly odd.

Natsuki took one of the papers out of the pocket of her skirt and unfolded it on the table, staring down at it curiously for the nth time that day. It was hand-written in a style she couldn't quite recognise, no doubt Shizuru would, or failing that her infallible secretary. Didn't the girl have a qualification in journalism? Besides the handwriting, there was the fact that "Tokiha" was buried in the stamp, signifying some possible connection to…

…that woman.

Natsuki felt a strange sensation of nervous discomfort slithering up her spine at the thought of that redheaded maniac and shook her head firmly to clear it. No doubt she indeed had something to do with all this; Mai had been giving her a profound feeling of déjà vu ever since their first meeting that Natsuki found she simply couldn't throw.

A sharp trilling noise brought her out of her thoughts, blinking away confusion. She reached into her pocket and swapped the paper for a phone instead, flicking open that razor-thin piece of plastic and gazing at the screen for a second.

Shizuru.

She pressed a button and brought the handset to her ear. "Yes?"

"Good afternoon, or perhaps evening. It's been hours since Motoko let me out of my office so I can't really say…" Shizuru sounded like she was pouting childishly, as she probably was.

"Whatever," replied Natsuki somewhat tersely. "I except you didn't call just to ask me to come knock out your secretary, hm?"

"My knight in shining armour, eh Natsuki-chan?" Shizuru giggled softly for a moment. "Oh, I'm sure you're busy enough for yourself with that shop of yours to run, so I won't bother you with something so trivial."

Natsuki sighed. "Then what _is_ it, Shizuru?"

"Well if you'd calm down first, perhaps that would help…"

Natsuki paused for a moment. Yes, maybe she was a little tense. Not like her to snap so readily at people, even if Shizuru _was_ terribly irritating at times. She took a deep breath before continuing, "Sorry. It's been…kind of a strange week."

"You have no idea," Shizuru agreed in a most worryingly serious tone of voice. "I'm afraid I need your help with something, you see…well I know they're not really _my_ patients, but the unique nature of the situation, I think, warrants our intervention."

"You mean _my_ intervention, don't you?"

"Oh don't be like that, Natsuki-chan," Shizuru teased. "I only retired because you asked me to."

Natsuki blushed slightly, but didn't respond. It would only encourage her further, after all.

"Anyway, yesterday we received two emergency patients, both of them rather young, female, both of them suffering from dehydration and sunburn in all sorts of strange places. They looked like they'd been traipsing through a desert or some such foolish thing."

Natsuki nodded her head politely to the waitress and pulled the fresh glass over until her lips found the straw. She mouthed a brief thank you and then sipped at the green, bubbling liquid hiding beneath all that thick mound of ice cream. "Yeah, I remember you saying something about that… So?"

"Well one of them woke up this morning. She was very weak, but she recovered beautifully over just the last few hours. She was even talking, though she's got an accent nobody can figure out and half the time she speaks English for some reason."

"Wow…sounds, er…" Natsuki struggled to think of a word that didn't sound too harsh. "…really interesting," she finally decided on.

Shizuru chuckled on the other end, no doubt shaking her head. "Oh, you don't know the half of it. The other girl woke up a while later in convulsions; we had to move her to another room. When the first girl, I think her name's "Arika" actually, from what they've been able to piece together. Anyway, when she saw us moving the other one, she insisted on staying with her so we just left them in the same room together. About an hour later, the room was off limits and the management is going crazy. They're say they both "escaped" or something."

"Escaped?" Natsuki fingered the straw pensively, swirling it slowly round and round and mixing the ice cream into her drink. Strange habit since she hated it when it turned all thick and gooey like that, but she found herself doing it anyway however hard she tried to resist. "What do you mean by "escaped" exactly? How do you escape from a _hospital_ anyway?"

"Regardless of that, I have to ask you a really big favour."

"You want me to find them, don't you?"

"Pleeeeeease, Natsuki-chan? I promise I'll make up to you for it."

Natsuki shook her head and laughed softly, if a little cynically besides. "Don't be silly. This is my job, after all, isn't it?"

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"Well, couldn't really understand him, so I still have no idea where we are. Really though, the people around here speak so weird… It's like a whole new country I've never even heard of before." Arika sighed heavily to herself and shook her head slowly side to side. "Oi, Nina-chan!" she yelled down the alley ahead of her. "I hope you like ramen because that's all I co-" She cut off.

Nina was kneeling on the floor of the alleyway, huddled back against a wall with the slightly tattered remains of that thin green robe curled defensively around her body. She was looking up with a frightened snarl towards a darkly dressed and cloaked figure standing tall, towering over her ominously, a hand reaching out towards the young girl.

Arika acted on her first impulse and tried throwing the ramen bowl at the stranger. When the mysterious figure simply smashed the bowl away with the back of one hand, Arika was already leaping forward, knee up, ready to deliver a good solid kick to the gut. She may not have been immediately able to fight as the Meister she really was, but she could still beat someone senseless when the occasion called for it.

Shockingly red eyes met her coming and froze the young girl in her tracks.

"M…M…" she stuttered more than just a little surprised as she relaxed back into a passive stance. "M…"

"Good afternoon, Yumemiya-san," said a very familiar voice from under the broad black wide-brimmed hat perched atop the stranger's head. "It's most fortunate that I found you both so quickly."

Nina looked towards her redhead companion, then back to the mystery individual several times, blinking rapidly. "Wh…what's going on? Arika?"

"Miyu!" yipped the redhead, and tossed herself at the considerably taller, older woman. Miyu's other arm appeared as if by magic from beneath the long flowing folds of her cloak and together they encircled Arika snugly, holding the girl tight against her front. "I'm so glad to see you, Miyu! I thought something strange had happened or something…but if you're here, then-"

"-I'm afraid there is no time to explain," interrupted Miyu. "I have to leave you now, for reasons you should not yet know. I promise, I will see you both again very soon."

Arika pulled back away from the enigmatic blue-haired woman and nodded firmly. "Mmm! I'll take good care of the both of us till you get back!"

Miyu reached deep into her cloak and pulled out a small cardboard tube. "You cannot stay here. It isn't safe. Take this with you and buy some clothes." She offered the tube to Arika who gladly accepted, and then followed with a small folded piece of paper. "Find this place. Go there. You'll both be safe, at least for a while. I will see you again there when the time comes to move again."

Arika nodded again. Then she tossed her arms around the android yet again and squeezed tight. "Thank you, Miyu-san!" When she let go, Miyu was smiling that strange little miniscule smile of hers again and looking down at the redhead with an almost maternal expression.

"Goodbye, Yumemiya-san," she said, turned, and with a whoosh of air she was gone.

Arika turned, opening her mouth to speak, but something collided with her mid-section before she could say anything. She looked down and found Nina with her arms around her waist, face buried against the redhead's stomach, trying her hardest not to cry by the sound of it. She blinked. Well, just what exactly _could_ she do?

"Damn it," muttered Nina, still sniffling. "Stupid…I hate this place. I feel so powerless now…so helpless…" She trailed off with a whimper. "I…I was…scared."

Arika put a hand on the dark-haired girl's head, but resisted the urge to comfort her.

"This is so annoying! How can I be such a lost, stupid, helpless little…" She trailed off again, bursting out into tears this time. As such, she didn't notice Arika's arms returning the encapsulating gesture.

"Don't worry, Nina-chan," the redhead tried to say in her most reassuring voice. "I'll just go ask where this-"

"-NO!" Nina's fingers dug into her companion's hips until her nails started biting into the skin. "Don't…don't go, please…don't leave me behind again…" She cursed her voice for making her sound so pathetic, but it was true. And Arika was the only one who could actually use her GEM, after all. By herself, Nina knew, she was practically defenceless.

To her surprise, the arms around her own body shifted again, grasping under her shoulders and lifting her up gently until she was on her feet again instead of collapsed down on her knees. She looked up and found those big blue eyes looking down at her affectionately, which must have taken quite some effort on Arika's part after their recent climactic altercation.

"Don't worry, Nina-chan. I won't leave you, I promise."

Nina slumped down against her front again and started sobbing gently under her breath. Arika's arms closed around her and held her upright.

"From now on, I'm not going anywhere without you."

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The scene; the throng of gathered journalists and pedestrian crowd, the calmly stoic police presence around the building, the scattered fragments of glass still dusted about the ground. Such controlled chaos, and somehow so in keeping with the setting. The hospital certainly had seen more than its fair share of crises and the huge debacle that the media were attempting to make of the broken window was being mainly ignored by the residents and staff alike. The public, of course, felt obliged to stop and stare for some reason or other as the public always does but the crowd had died down considerably in the short time since the incident itself. As the last few glimmers of orange-red sun in the evening sky trickled lethargically away into darkness, the gathered presence was growing ever sparser.

Shizuru negotiated her way deftly around a cameraman with one uncomfortably heavy bag under her left arm and her notebook bag dangling from her right shoulder, putting as much effort as she could into maintaining her usual dignified, elegant appearance just in case a camera or two spotted her. Thankfully, they all seemed to be more interested in harassing a poor young uniformed officer who was at that moment stammering her way, admirably Shizuru thought to herself, through what was clearly a half-baked "official" explanation of the events earlier that day.

Something knocked sharply against the small of her back and she turned to identify the offending elbow, or at least what had felt like an elbow to her, only to find a large, stiff black rectangular bag at least two feet in length hanging from a rather burly shoulder. It was clear from the shape of the bag that the only thing inside was a large square box, of some rather stiff material, that took up almost every breath of space within. The zipper was half-open and brushed gunmetal grey lurked beneath.

The figure with the bag disappeared into the crowd before anything more could happen, taking that bag and its most intriguing contents with him. No, it had most definitely been a man, she could tell that much from his build alone, what little she had seen.

Shizuru threw it to the back of her mind and continued towards her car waiting patiently for her in its usual spot.

Predictably, fate intervened.

A gasp rushed through the crowd, then cries of alarm and surprise, confused murmurs, soon turning to a profoundly disturbed sort of noise as a dozen voices all clamoured for attention. Someone screamed, probably that poor over-worked young policewoman, and Shizuru turned on her heel to see what all the commotion was about this time.

She just had time to see a gorgeous cherry red convertible come rushing up along the road, back end swinging out with a screech as the driver pinned a brutally sharp turn and brought the thing up toward the pavement where Shizuru stood. She did not jump, for angry red convertibles did _not_ run down Fujino Shizuru, and as well they did because the one in question just barely skidded to a stop half a metre from her knees. A woman in her early thirties, though she may just as easily be a college student, with hair as red as the car itself leapt out hurriedly over the door. The rather dashingly handsome man in the passenger seat reached over and plucked what looked like a horrible fusion of a child's water cannon and a fire extinguisher and hefted it by a thick black strap over one shoulder before following her. Together the two dashed across the paving straight past a rather irritated Shizuru, towards the focus of considerably more attention.

Well that was just plain strange.

Where there had only shortly before been a nice clean, ordinary wall with one rather destroyed window, there was now a most horrendously alien monstrosity growing over it, a wide black circle over five metres across spreading to cover a large part of the wall, a swirling maelstrom of deep purples and reds and bright pinpoints of light. From the eye of the storm, as the crowd and the media watched with growing amazement, emerged a single bold point; a gleaming silvery-gold spike the size of a grown person's forearm or even bigger. Bigger indeed, as the thing drew forth even further, until the spike was a metre in length at the very least and attached to the snout of a pointed, snake-like head covered with narrow yellow plates over inhuman orange flesh.

"Shit!" The redheaded woman turned to her companion with what seemed to be an expression of unrestrained delight on her face. "Are you recording this, Rei-kun?"

Her tall, dark-haired male friend did not answer, but instead was busying himself pressing random sequences of buttons on a small keypad built onto the back of that strange device in his arms.

"Fucking…don't say the damn thing's broken again…" Midori turned back towards the emerging beast with a very angry scowl, stamping her foot. "Piece of shit!"

The creature roared screamed a reptilian scream as its broad serpentine body slowly emerged from the depths of the twisting nether within the portal. Midori answered with an enraged yell of frustration, though the crowd was too busy running away to really notice her. The stuttering young policewoman was sitting dazed on the ground staring up at the thing, and one suicidal reporter in particular was still standing in front of her camera team frantically chattering into the microphone as she gestured with her free arm to the beast behind her.

A van was already pulling up at the far side of the parking lot, on the other side of the building just visible behind all the chaos. Shizuru spotted it, and Midori spotted it too. Shizuru felt a sudden overwhelming urge to "not be there" very quickly, and preferably immediately. Right now.

Midori ignored the brunette woman hastily retreating into the relative safety of her own car and gave Reito another angry growl. "Fucking thing…give it here!" She whacked one fist hard against the side of the device, leaving a shallow dent in the already battered metal skin, but at last, the lights on the front end flickered to life. With a whining buzz the whole contraption juddered to a start and the three narrow prongs arrayed in a triangular pattern around the front nozzle began to rotate slowly, static crackling between them.

The creature screamed again, drawing Midori's attention back mid-ecstatic exclamation. By now it was almost completely free of the portal, which itself was shrinking away rapidly. It body, almost ten metres long in total, was covered in those same yellow plates interspersed by that same orange flesh, and a broad triple row of back-swept curved spines running along its back. Five narrow green eyes peered out from the gaps between the plates covering its facial area, and a slit opened in its head, pivoting open like a snake's jaw to reveal saliva-dripping fangs the size of meat cleavers.

"Hurry up, damn it," urged the frustrated redhead to her would-be partner in crime. "It's gonna get away already!" She left him to his own devices, which hopefully he could tend to on his own, and rushed over to the young woman in the police uniform still sat on her backside gawping up at the terrifying vision above her.

"What…w-w-w-what is that thing? Who…who are you?"

Midori put a hand on the other woman's shoulder and tried to look as reassuring as she could. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, just stay right here."

"Well Midori, you wanted nano-machines, you got yourself an eyewitness." Reito chuckled a tad ironically. "And an Orphan in public…lucky girl." The machine in his hands started bleeping wildly at him, hogging his attention away from the immediate goings-on. Between that strange contraption, the Orphan and the terrified policewoman, nobody noticed the seven figures gathering in the nearby parking lot, all in bulky white body suits and carrying strange objects themselves.

Just when everyone though it was going to be one of those "inexplicable strange thingy from another dimension eats a local policewoman" stories, Armitage arrived. Not only did she arrive just in time, she arrived in style, just as she always did, because that was part of the job.

"Stop right there!" bellowed a commanding female voice.

The first thing the camera saw when it swung up towards the source of that voice were her boots, those thick, heavy metal green boots so reminiscent of some ancient medieval armour suit that sank into the concrete beneath her like it was sand under her feet, leaving the grey ledge shattered from her heavy landing. The cameraman panned up slowly, dramatically, though the fact that from that angle her skirt was slightly ineffective didn't hurt the matter. Unfortunately, the mysterious feminine figure was perched atop the hospital building itself just above the creature, with the sun behind her, eclipsing whatever hid beneath that skirt from view and making her a dramatic (not to mention rather curvaceous) silhouette on the camera's eye. By the time the light compensator kicked in, the green-garbed mystery woman had launched herself up into the air to come soaring down towards her apparent adversary with her fist cocked back behind her head, fingers glowing bright yellow.

"Beware, vile creature!" bellowed the mustard-haired heroine. "I, Armitage, will not allow you to ferment this city's innocent inhabitants!"

Somewhere nearby, Yukino put her hand to her face and sighed, "Haruka-chan…"

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The early evening air was surprisingly cool and gentle given how bright it still was outside, the midsummer sun streaming down through the thin cloud cover onto the city. A thick waft of steam billowed out of the bathhouse through the door as it opened, and out stepped Mai with a delightfully satisfied grin on her face. Mikoto was practically clinging to her arm, pouting harshly and making a terribly irritating whining noise. Her face was tinted a light pink right through her cheeks from all the hot water.

"See, Mikoto-chan? I told you it'd be fun!"

The youngster pouted up at her elder and stuck out her tongue. Mai just chuckled and knocked Mikoto gently on the head with one balled-up hand.

"Doesn't it feel better to be clean again? I bet you're glad really," she persisted in a most definitely jovial tone of voice, her lips curled into a rather feline smirk. She held the back of one hand over her mouth for a nice long yawn, her back arching upward, her eyes rolling momentarily shut. A quick bout of blinking followed to clear the sudden drowsiness from her head, her gaze wandering lazily up to the sky.

"Wait…what's that?"

Mikoto looked up at her curiously, cocking her head to one side. "Eh?"

Mai raised her hand and pointed a finger up into the sky at a small, dark blob silhouetted against the clouds. "You see that, Mikoto-chan?"

"Hm?" The young girl followed her finger along and stared for a while. After a moment or two, she tensed, her hands squeezing around the redhead's forearm. "Orphan," she hissed.

Mai blinked again. "What? But…so soon?" She pouted, not too unlike the young black-haired girl's own expression barely a minute earlier and whined quietly. "We just got done getting rid of one last night! Why can't we have a break for once?"

To answer her question, so it would seem, Mikoto yelped and squeezed harder on her arm. "Something else!"

"What? What is it?"

"A person! Someone…can't tell."

Mai looked down at her young charge with a serious expression. "You mean…someone like us?"

Mikoto nodded gravely. "Think so…"

She was interrupted by a rather tall and burly man of some inconsequential description barging past them along the street just in front of the bathhouse, carrying a large rectangular black bag slung from one shoulder. Mikoto yelped and Mai shouted angrily at the man, but only caught sight of the back of a long black overcoat before he turned down a nearby alleyway and disappeared.

"Jeez…" Mai turned up her nose in a show of displeasure. "Some people are so inconsiderate these days."

Out of sight and out of earshot, where any wandering passer-by or certain important persons were unlikely to see or hear, the strange man let the bag fall to the paved ground and shuffled it up until it was half hidden between two large dumpsters parked in the alleyway. He reached into a pocket in his coat and withdrew a small square device with a screen and many very small buttons on one side. He pressed a few, and the screen lit up.

"Scanner one in place," he muttered in a deep voice. "Do we deploy?"

"Hold," the device hissed back at him. "Hold until ordered. Be ready for _immediate_ deploy."

"Roger."

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"Excuse me, sir?"

The man blinked. That certainly was one of, if not the, very strangest accents he had heard in a long time, to say the least. His brain actually took a few seconds to put all the syllables together to the point it all made sense.

"Yes?" he replied in his best formal introduction voice. "How can I help you, miss?"

The young red-haired girl in the cheap blue sweater and pastel skirt shuffled her white sock-clad feet from side to side a little as she looked up at the tall and very smartly dressed man before her. "Well," she began hesitantly, "I was just told to come to this place. She said we could stay here…"

The porter shook his head. "Dear me, I'm afraid I really can't understand you…"

Arika frowned, screwing up her face again. "I'm sorry but I…it's hard to…erm…"

Her companion, a similarly youthful girl with dark navy blue hair, draped in a thick brown overcoat that reached down to her feet, put a hand to her forehead and groaned. "Do you speak English, sir?"

The porter let out a relieved exclamation. "English! You speak English, yes, good! My English is…decent."

Nina nodded. "Well then," she said, trying not to speak too quickly, "we were told that we could stay here. What is this place exactly?"

The suit-clad man gestured around himself to the clean, polished marble flooring and the wide bay windows, and all the ornate, decorative fixtures adorning a surprisingly expansive room. "This is the lobby, miss," he explained. "This is a hotel, of course. One of the best in the area, I might say." He gestured over to the huge semicircular desk in one corner of the lobby, at the handful of cheerful and similarly dressed staff chattering away to various customers. "Are you here for a stay?"

Arika nodded emphatically. "We need a room, or two, or whatever! Just any place to stay for a while, that's all." She paused, holding a finger to her lips and humming in thought. "Though…Miyu didn't really say how long we should stay, so I don't know…"

Nina sighed and waved a dismissive hand to the porter, who was looking a touch lost with Arika's sudden rapid outburst. "We'd like a room please. Anything you can, as long as it's cheap." Arika nodded again, grinning widely and, she hoped, cute too. She could certainly do it when she tried.

The porter shook his head and gave a soft laugh. "Well it all depends on how much you've got, but I think we have some rooms empty."

Arika reached into her pocket and pulled out that short cardboard tube, from which she produced a whole roll of notes. The porter went a little wide-eyed and then started gesturing wildly.

"Wait miss, now…I get the feeling this isn't quite what it looks like." He shot a questioning look towards Nina, who winced slightly.

"We're…new here." She took the wad of money from her companion, ignoring the pouting and the yipping that brought, and showed it to the man. "How much is this anyway?"

"Better than enough for a room," he replied, smiling reassuringly. "You could rent one for a whole week if you're lucky. I'll go and find a cheap one for you." With that he bowed politely to the two young girls and then strode off over to the reception desk in the corner, leaving Nina to collapse back against Arika's side with a deep breath. Arika yelped and flailed to catch the darker-haired girl in her arms before they both fell over, holding tight to keep Nina on her feet.

One of the receptions staff, a modestly attractive brunette woman in her late twenties, or so she would seem, smiled knowingly up at the porter. "I see you made two more friends, Take-kun."

"Takeshi, you're too much of a nice guy," interjected a considerably younger man from the other end of the desk, smirking mischievously. "I told you to stay away from those two."

The porter replied with his own all-knowing grin. "And _I_ told you that there was something unusual going on, didn't I?" He turned to spare a quick look back at the two girls, now wandering across the lobby towards bar area where the orange-haired girl was guiding the purple-haired girl into a chair. "Dressed in something like that, any of _you_ lot would have just kicked her out. But I know when something's a-miss."

The receptionist shook her head, giggling amusedly, and switched back to her typing.

"So then, my dear Rumiko, could you see if any of the second storey rear rooms are empty?"

"You mean the really cheap ones, yeah?" She suppressed another laugh as her fingers flew over the keypad with practiced expertise. "Well, we do have one or two left. Two-seven-eight and two-nine-five. I dunno…you want both?"

The porter shook his head. "I think they'd prefer to stay together, somehow. Call it just intuition."

"That'd make you a mother yet, Takeshi?" There followed another brief round of laughter across the desk, to which Takeshi himself only grinned and bowed again, as he always did, running a hand over his slicked-back short silver hair. The receptionist tapped away a little more and then finally, from one small slot in a whole array of them set into the very surface of the desk beside her, out popped a thick plastic card no larger than a few centimetres along each side. The porter snapped it between forefinger and thumb before she could reach for it and held it up to his face.

"Thank you so much, dear Rumiko. I think I owe you again for this."

With that he dashed back to his two would-be clients, effortlessly concealing his haste with years of practice. Arika was puzzled, but happy to bow until she started feeling dizzy while Nina took the card for herself in exchange for a measly few hundred yen.

"I have arranged your room for the night. If you want to stay longer, just call the front desk and you can pay when you leave." Nina nodded affirmative and thanked the man quite briskly then moved to stand. The attempt did not quite go as planned, but Arika was at her side before she knew it and slender, sturdy arms winding about her body helped to lift her up to her feet with little difficulty. The pair followed the porter to an elevator and then together navigated the corridors of the hotel until they found their designated room.

It was a small room, perhaps, but not too different from the room they had shared at Garderobe, along with a whole other person. The décor was rich and warm, and pleasant on the eyes as with many hotels, and the lighting was bright but not too sharp. No window, but where one may have been was instead a wide watercolour painting of some random landscape that both girls found a tad odd; so lush and green, a thick forest of tall trees and overgrown bushes, gentle hills covered in green grass and a towering green snow-capped mountain as the centre point. Nina found herself wondering for a moment if it was really a fictitious landscape, or where, if not, it might be. Nowhere in the WindBloom kingdom, or Artai for that matter. There was a sliding door to a surprisingly large closet, empty of course, and another door that lead through to an impressive bathroom suite.

And one bed.

"They only gave us one bed…"

Arika poked her elbow playfully against her companion's ribs. "Not like you actually said "two beds please" or anything. How were they supposed to know?"

Nina glared at her, but she ignored it and dove straight onto the thick, sumptuous purple covers. "What, they thought we were sisters?"

"Or maybe they think we're…" Arika giggled. "You're so boring, Nina-chan."

"Shut up!" argued the dark-haired girl, blushing slightly. "As if I'd...with you, of all people…"

"Ow."

Nina blinked. "Hm?"

"That hurt…" Arika didn't move, or turn to face her, but her shoulders were taught as she lay face-down on the bed. "You're so cold sometimes, Nina-chan."

"I…er…I'm sorry, I didn't mean…I didn't think you…"

The redhead waved dismissively and then patted the bed space beside herself. "Just shut up and come get some sleep already. I don't know about you but I'm exhausted."

Nina frowned. "Only if you keep your fingers to yourself."

Arika grinned over her shoulder and wiggled her fingers at the other girl, who shrank back slightly at the sight. "Only if you need it, Nina-chan. I think it's the only time I've really seen you laugh."

Nina turned her nose up petulantly. "I laugh. You just never it see because I don't laugh near _you_, you foolish young girl." She turned away and hung up the heavy brown coat that they had scrounged out of a dumpster onto one of the hooks by the door. Then on second thought, she unhooked the thing and tossed it into the large empty hamper in the corner beside the bathroom door.

The cool breeze from the air conditioning unit was suddenly chill against her skin, naked as she was under the coat, having had her clothes destroyed long ago and that green cloth thing long gone. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, until a second pair joined them without warning, pulling her back against another warm body.

"Arika…" she tried to protest, but it just trailed off. So cold and tired, such wasn't really the time to be protesting offered hospitality. She wriggled her way round to face the other girl and returned the gesture, her arms fitting around Arika's waist in a way that seemed almost…comfortable.

"Nina-chan, please, you need to rest. You're still weak." The redhead's voice was soft and entreating in tone, and her eyes showed her concern clear as day when she looked down. Nina found her resolve melting away.

"Okay," she surrendered finally. "Let's just…go to bed, yeah…"

"I promise," replied Arika, "my hands will stay where they belong."

Nina nodded. "Right…right where they are now…I think…"

And that was that.

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Not too much later that very same night, the air above the city was a dark tempest of swirling clouds that crackled and spat lightning in thick sheets across the sky, a nebulous whirlpool of malevolent power that formed the condensed masses of water into an upward-stretching spiral. The massive storm-cloud that hung over the city was being twisted and reshaped by some nameless force, unbeknownst to the citizens below, until it was a towering spire reaching up into the stratosphere. Just below the base of that huge tower, blinding bright bursts of pale yellow smashed and hammered against an ominous spot of deep thrumming orange, answered occasionally by thin slashes of flame that raced across the skies in wide, sweeping arcs. A news helicopter circled low over the city, battered downward by the torrential rains and an inexplicably strong wind that seemed to be blowing straight down.

"Hey! Would ya watch where you're pointin' that thing, woman!" The pilot leant over to one side up against the thick glass that made up the cockpit side, away from the handheld microphone being waved dangerously in his direction.

"Shut up," barked the newscaster herself, straightening herself back into her seat and adjusting her tie. "Just try not to crash into anything."

"You've got thirty seconds, Yomi," said the man behind the camera in that unnervingly calm voice he always used. "Now isn't the time for worrying about your outfit." She gave him a sarcastic smile in return and flicked her thick brown hair back over her shoulder again.

"Iwata, check the outboard cam again."

"Hey, trust me, it's fine. I know what I'm doing."

"But…"

Iwata gave her a very firm look that left no room for any more protests. She frowned and let out a resigned sigh just as the little red light flickered to life on the side of the camera. The voice of her director came storming into her left ear like a freight train rushing past so loud that she could hear perfectly despite not having the earpiece in place. She always did hate how those things looked on camera, after all. Hers spent most of its life tucked behind her ear out of sight where she could hear the director just fine, not that she usually listened to the idiot anyway.

Bureaucrat.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen," she said in her most formal voice, effortlessly masking over her own emotions. "Up here, in the skies above Tokyo city, a most disturbing event is unfolding that even the scientific community of Japan is having trouble explaining away. Some have theorised that this is, in fact, some sort of freak natural occurrence, or perhaps an artificially caused meteorological phenomenon."

Iwata flicked a few switches and the camera feed swapped over, leaving Yomi only seconds to move, still talking, to her next position kneeling right beside the wide glass door of the craft.

"As you can see, the sky directly overhead is an impenetrable shell of cloud, dark enough to blind even the best of pilots and all but extinguish the already meagre starlight Tokyo receives on the clearest of nights. There appears to be some kind of cyclone system forming in the sky, however irrational it may seem, _upside-down_ over the city."

Another flick of a switch and the masses were treated to a first-class view out of the door of the helicopter, looking out over the Tokyo skyline towards the epicentre of that tremendous storm cloud some few short kilometres away, where the 'lightning' was at its brightest and most colourful.

"What has many people worried is this, you see before you now; it appears to be some kind of electrical discharge that defies most of what Japan's meteorological experts know about lightning in its many forms. The closest anyone has come so far is the notion that, perhaps, this is simply an aggravated and confused natural weather pattern affected by the unnatural pressure systems that flow over the manmade structures below. The lightning is branching out in all directions, but for now there appears to be no danger to anyone on the ground. Indeed, even the tallest buildings have stood so far witho-"

She broke off.

The director started yelling in her ear, but she wasn't listening. She was signalling frantically behind her back to her cameraman, off-camera, while she held a pair of motorised binoculars up to her face with the other hand. Iwata looked confused at first but soon found what it was that appeared to have grasped his co-worker's attention so viciously and zoomed the camera rapidly in on it.

"A girl," said the newscaster to herself in an astonished whisper. She cleared her throat, shaking the note of startled wonder from her voice as she held the microphone back up to her mouth and clicked it on.

"A girl," she declared firmly, ignoring that pest of a voice buzzing behind her ear. Screw jumping to conclusions. "That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you really are seeing this. Up in the skies above Tokyo city, an unidentified girl, throwing what appears to be bolts of lightning as if they were sheets of paper…"

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Haruka was oblivious to the helicopter, or the young newswoman therein whom she had at least several years over, calling her a "girl" of all things. She was too busy kicking some serious ass.

That was the best part of being Armitage. Yes, admittedly, living as the successful and incredibly wealthy owner of one of the largest business firms in Japan was impressive, and being her ravishingly beautiful self was not without its rewards however hard it was to maintain, but nothing compared to Armitage. Armitage was power, and pride, and an attitude that nothing could silence. Armitage didn't take shit from anyone for anything, and that was just the way she liked it. But most of all:

Armitage was a smack down with a ten-ton truck.

The overkill, that was what she loved the most, the sheer gratuitous excess. The way in which any threat, any opponent, was dealt with in exactly the same way; she blasted the ever-living crap out of it. Armitage was an unstoppable avatar of righteous vengeance, the burning fist of justice. Her fury was the sun, incinerating everything in its path.

Those stupid Orphans never stood a chance.

The snake beast screamed at her again and she threw yet another enormous bolt of energy at the thing with an enraged bellow of her own. Like a solid beam as thick as her thigh it jumped from her outstretched fist to the creature, connecting faster than the eye could follow and bringing forth a blinding splash of yellowish light that temporarily obscure her opponent from view. The scream it gave, much more discordant than before, gave her immense satisfaction.

From the foaming cloud of smoke that had engulfed the Orphan issued forth several long, curving jets of flame that arced through the air towards her, closing in from all around, even above and below her. In a heartbeat, she was a sitting duck, with countless trails of fire racing to meet her and torch her alive, or so it might have seemed. The attack broke across an invisible shell that encapsulated her from head to foot and left the mighty Armitage unscathed and laughing contemptuously at her foe, arms crossed over (rather, _under_) her expansive chest.

"You're no match for me, you foolish beast!" Her voice was as bold and commanding as ever, even though the Orphan could likely not understand her at all. Japanese-speaking aliens; who ever heard of such a thing? Instead of boasting, as she usually did, her tone became an agitated demand. "You can't win against the power of Armitage! What is it you want here? Did you come to make a few pretty little patterns in the sky or are you on some sort of mission?"

The creature did not answer her, not that she had really expected one, nor did it take advantage of her pause as they most often did. Haruka felt her irritation growing ever larger as the thing continued to stare her down, tiny jolts of electricity snapping across its scaled body in spasmodic patterns. The tingling feeling creeping across her skin was beginning to grow stronger, though whether it was her exerting herself so far or the lightning in the air remained unanswered.

"Fine!" she yelled at it, flashing her trademark 'insane wrath' grin at the Orphan. "I'll just have to blow you into a million tiny pieces and then interrogate what's left!"

She clenched her left hand into a fist, the muscles in her forearm, usually hidden beneath lightly tanned skin, bulging impressively. Blowing it up wasn't working, so it was time for the hands-on approach. Her body darted forward at something approaching the speed of sound, leaving shockwave in the air behind her, and her arm bent back beside her head to deliver a good solid punch right on that annoying snake's face.

At the last second, the Orphan turned its attention up towards the clouds overhead and started squirming its way up through the air at a startling speed. Its whole body was crackling with static and the horn on the prow of its serpentine head was giving off a soft blue glow. Haruka shot straight past it and was some distance away before she could stop and turn back towards it, blinking confusedly.

"Damn it," she cursed under her breath and sent herself flying after the thing at top speed. "Bastard!" she yelled at it. "Get back here! I'm not finished with you yet!"

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The sound of a soft, muffled whisper seeped in through the foggy black haze of unconsciousness and brushed at the edges of a tired and disoriented mind. The mind in question responded by twitching a few extremities before sending slow, cautious impulses down its associated arms. They tried to move, but found themselves caught around something large, at least as wide as their owner's own body; or more precisely, they were _wrapped_ about something. A pair of deep, golden orange eyes rolled lethargically open. The first thing they saw was moonlight, pale and silvery, and the soft yellow-orange glow of artificial light trickling in through the gap between thick red curtains drawn shut across a sliding glass door. The door appeared not quite firmly closed and a gentle night breeze blew one side of the curtain lazily back and forth, dragging across the carpeted floor with a hushed rustling noise. As they wafted ajar, a balcony came into view beyond the door, not much more than large enough for one person and lined by narrow black metal railings less than a metre high.

Nina blinked slowly, once then twice, shifting her body slightly to one side as she unfolded her upper arm from where it lay draped across the person-sized lump resting in bed beside her. Her lower arm stayed where it was, trapped between the bed and that familiar figure, as she shook the drowsiness from her head. The thin, short bowl of her emery black hair fell down behind her head to brush against her naked shoulders, and a shiver ran through her when another draught sent chill midnight air racing about her exposed back and sides; still she sat up as far as she could without extricating her arm for where it stayed, snug and warm.

On the balcony, silhouetted against the light streaming in from outside, was a modestly tall dark figure of some description. The most prominent features were thick, high-topped boots that stretched up the figure's calves quite a distance, along with a huge, wide brimmed hat that cast a shadow on most of the person's body as well as creating a vast expanse of darkness on the floor behind. The rest of the figure was shrouded by a long cloak garment that reached almost to the ankles, wafting slowly in the breeze just as did the curtains.

"W…" Nina tried to speak, but her throat choked up and she coughed instead. Her free hand went at once to cover her mouth, stifling her hacking, lest her outbursts wake the redheaded girl sleeping peacefully by her side. The muscles under her ribs and all across her left side still ached unbearably as they had all through the previous day, but that pain had lost its sharp edge at least. When she finally had her breathing back under control, she cleared her throat and gave another attempt.

"Who are you," she prompted firmly of the unidentified figure on the balcony. "What are you doing here?"

The figure turned slowly towards her, sliding the glass door fully open once again. Those thick, solid boots sounded heavy on the thin carpet as the figure stepped into the room, darkness still obscuring any facial features. Nina was too busy looking hesitantly about the room in which she now lay to pay too much heed as that figure turned to stand at the foot of the bed, not more than a metre or so from the balcony door.

"Where are we?" Nina inquired of the silent intruder, her tone growing a touch more imperative. "This isn't the same room…what did you do?"

"I moved you," replied an easily recognisable voice somewhere between softly feminine and deeply masculine, firm and cold yet gentle and reassuring in some strange way. "Had they come for you, I would not have been able to get you both out in time. I needed an alternate entrance." Nina beat her free hand against the bed as hard as she could, though only a soft whuff of air issued forth in protest, thankfully nothing loud enough as to even threaten the other girl's peaceful slumber.

"You-" she cut off with something of a start, turning her head quickly to the sleeping Arika. Apparently, her raised tone of voice had not broken through the redhead's deep unconscious state, for she snored softly on to herself yet. "You have a lot of explaining to do," Nina reaffirmed considerably more subdued than before, "Miss…whoever you are… Well for one thing, who _are_ you anyway? And where _is_ this place?"

"I am Miyu."

Nina cocked an eyebrow curiously. "So you _say_ your name is Miyu. Then you're that woman we saw earlier, in the alley?"

Miyu shook her head almost unnoticeably and repeated, stressing the words in what Nina thought was an uncomfortable sounding manner, "I am Miyu."

"Okay," Nina relented uneasily, "Miyu-san…where are we?"

Miyu paused for quite a long few moments, the dark void that covered her face concealing any expressions that might be flickering to hint at her underlying emotion, though knowing Miyu none would anyway. Her voice was the same flat, deep, and somehow emotive tone it always was when she answered quite simply, "Earth."

"Earth?" Nina looked around her again at the darkened room, bemusement on her face. "But…"

"Not the Earth with which you are familiar, Nina-san," interrupted the enigmatic woman before Nina could ask any further questions. Her face turned ever so slightly to the young girl's side. "Do you remember the Black Valley, Yumemiya-san?"

"I think so," came Arika's voice, sleepy and dazed though it was, from just beside and behind Nina's shoulder, startling her considerably. The redhead brought both hands to her face to rub her eyes awake, yawning hugely. Nina's arm drifted downward back towards her side but, surprisingly, Arika turned her head to the dark-haired girl with an odd expression when she noticed the movement and reached out to take Nina's hand in her own. She drew that arm back up, until it was draped across behind her shoulders, and then leaned slightly into the other girl so that her shoulder nudged Nina's chest.

Nina flushed slightly, and was thankful nobody could see it through the darkness. Try as she might though, she couldn't stop her hand from drifting back down to where it had been before, settled on Arika's far hip. Where it was more…comfortable.

"The Black Valley is like an island caught between dimensions, stretched across the boundary separating one world from another. Either world can pass into the Valley, and then out the other side into another dimension."

"Wait…" Nina felt her eyebrows knotting together in the middle of her forehead, but what was said actually seemed to be making sense. "So we're not on Earth…but some…_other_ Earth?"

"Yes," replied Miyu simply, in that oh so final way she had of doing so. "You have passed from your own world to a different one, where Earth has not expanded out into space yet, and technology has not advanced as far as it has on your planet."

"Miyu," began Arika, but Nina interrupted,

"But then how did we get here? The last thing I can remember, we were…" she trailed off.

"I brought you both." Miyu turned to face the balcony again, leaving her face in profile as she tipped her head back until moonlight was free to wash in under the rim of her hat and illuminate her features at last. "You were needed here, so I was forced to bring you."

"Miyu," Arika repeated imploringly, "you keep saying "your world"…" She paused. The question hung on the tip of her tongue. It was such a foolish thing to ask, certainly, but from the worried look on her face, Arika already knew the answer. "…but it's yours too, isn't it Miyu?"

Miyu shook her head slowly from side to side, letting the fedora shroud her face once more. "I am not of your world. This world, this reality, this is my home."

Silence reined for a long while, the two young girls sitting a little uncomfortably on the bed side by side, looking hesitantly at one another with similar confused expressions hidden in the darkness. After what seemed like forever, Nina finally broke through the awkward pause, turning her attention back to the black-robed figure, "Miyu-san…"

Miyu was gone, empty air where but moments before had stood that mysterious blue-haired woman. The night breeze wafted the curtains back and forth through the open balcony door.

Nina let out a heavy sigh, a slightly agitated sound. "Does she expect us to just sit here in this room forever then? What are we doing here? Surely there must be some _reason_ she brought us here in the first place…"

Arika's arm around her lower back gave a comforting squeeze. "Don't worry, Nina," she said in an unexpectedly tender voice. "I'm sure Miyu-san knows what she's doing. I trust her not to put us in danger if she can help it."

"Hey… What did you call me?" Nina responded after a considerably lengthy pause.

Arika smiled not quite nervously up at her, still leaning into the dark-haired girl's side. "What's wrong, Nina? Did I say something wrong?"

Nina turned her nose up slightly and averted her gaze. "Just…nothing." She almost left it at that, but something was just screaming at her to be a little more forthcoming and she eventually relented. "Just…thinking of fa-Sergei…" she corrected herself.

"I'm sorry."

Nina looked back down at the redhead leaning limp against her, cradled in her arm. "What?" She shook her head slowly. "You haven't done anything wrong, Arika…I just…" She trailed off again.

A hand grasped at her shoulder, turning her to face the other girl as Arika leaned up until their faces were level.

"I'm sorry…Ni-na."

"Don't say that…"

Arika's thin, delicate young lips twitched into a half-smirk as one finger traced a slow, lazy pattern across the other girl's upper chest, gradually wandering lower.

"Ni…na…"

The way her lips moved as the sounds drifted out, barely a whisper, as if her tongue caressed every nuance as it went. She was clearly enjoying it. One more time, her mouth spread open the very slightest way and the tip of that narrow pink tongue peeked out as it curled up behind her top teeth…

"Ni…"

Nina shot her a suddenly amused look. "Go back to sleep already, Arinko."

"Sergei used to call me that," replied Arika in an almost sensuous tone.

Before any questions could be asked, the redhead let herself fall onto her back again with a soft thump and her arm around Nina's waist pulled the other girl down with her, so they lay once more side by side. In place of the usual mischievous comment that Nina might have expected, there was only silence, a puzzlingly relaxing, contented sort of silence. As Arika's eyes drifted shut again, her smile shifted from amusement to satisfaction.

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Outside, somewhere nearby on a deserted rooftop, high above street level, that dark figure stood solemnly at the corner straddling a high metal railing, looking out over the cityscape with shocking red eyes. Her face was as flat and calm as ever, but her eyes gave subtle hint to the tumultuous emotions roiling and foaming beneath her placid surface.

"I lied," she said to no one, her voice filled with regret. "Yumemiya-san trusts me with her life…and I lied to her."

The small yellow bird perched atop her left shoulder turned its head in an almost human manner and twittered at her excitedly.

"No, I understand, Miss, but…" She repeated, as if in answer this time, "I lied. I lied to both of them… Because they must not know the truth, is that it Miss? Isn't that what you wanted? All this is so that they can still lead normal lives, if they survive…"

The little bird twittered some more, chirping away in its melodious little voice, and Miyu seemed to listen intently to what it had to say. She nodded almost imperceptibly in response.

"I tried to tell them the truth," she answered after a moment's more silence. Her eyes turned down to glance at her hand for a moment as she spoke. "How can something so artificial have a name to begin with…?"

The little bird squawked furiously at her all of a sudden, chattering agitatedly and hopping about on her shoulder, flapping its wings at her. She lifted a hand to offer a comforting touch to its head, but it refused, batting the offered fingers away with its wings and squawking still.

"Please, Miss…I know you don't like it when I say it, but it is the truth. I do not deserve a human name, after all." Miyu slowly let her eyes drift shut, and her face relaxed again from the tense expression it had grown to back to its natural emotionless state. The little bird was still warbling away angrily as she spoke again, in a much softer, more soothing tone of voice, "please, Miss. I promise, I won't mention it again. I pro-"

There was a sharp hiss.

The little yellow bird leapt up and fluttered into the air as Miyu hunched forward violently, her hands grasping at the metal railing to keep herself from falling. Her fingers tightened with such force that the rusted old metal bars twisted and deformed under her touch, like warmed plastic. Panicked warbling filled the air, that little yellow bird circling frantically above the woman, now kneeling, as a cloud of luminescent blue steam emitted from the back of her neck in several thick puffs.

Her mind was boiling. Her brain was exploding inside her head, frying the inside of her skull and everything else within, including itself. Her vision turned blue and violet, and red, then orange, then green, all the different colours she could name and many she couldn't, cycling through them all one after the other at ever-increasing speeds. Her consciousness was being sucked away, one tiny piece at a time, nibbled at by a thousand angry wasps. It was agony, and it was unstoppable, and it was terrifying. Images, sounds, scents…memories she had almost forgotten she even had came rushing to the surface as they one by one dissolved before her eyes; memories of a mysterious man towering over her prone body, of voices all around her in the darkness, of how cold snow was…

…a tall, young golden-haired woman, standing in the snow…

She grabbed that one with all her might and forced it away somewhere deep inside, where the pain couldn't find it and destroy it.

Then, the world faded away into dark silence.

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Several hundred metres more or less directly up, much was afoot.

Haruka recoiled swiftly through the air away from her opponent, clutching a hand tightly against the side of her arm. Blood seeped through the narrow gaps between her fingers, trickled down the back of her hand in thin rivulets, down along her forearm, and dripped off her other elbow. It stung like hell, sure, but it was still pitifully shallow a wound; a paper cut in the face of a raging angry bull. Ultimately, it only made her even more pissed off.

"Damn it," she yelled at the Orphan, again, "you _really_ don't want to make me any madder!"

The Orphan replied with another fresh burst of razor-thin flaming shafts that lanced out towards her like flailing tendrils, lashing and writhing through the air, each one missing by a comfortable margin thanks to Armitage's incredible agility. She slid from side to side effortlessly, and whatever didn't miss completely broke apart against the thick, glowing yellow transparency that manifested in front of her as a shield.

The second the attack ended, Haruka answered in kind with one hand stretched towards the creature, fingers spread, yellow light glowing at their tips. Energy leapt from her fingertips in rapid fire, thin yellow beams that snapped through the air and scorched deep, smouldering pits into the surface of those thick armoured plates that covered the snake creature's hide. It screamed and thrashed, and tried to evade, but dodging bolts of light is, as any physicist will attest to, practically impossible at such short range.

Haruka's face twisted from angry to wicked delight and the glow surrounding her fingers swelled. Pale yellow turned lighter, whiter, those narrow shafts of light smashing into the Orphan's scales like miniature nuclear explosives. The screaming grew and grew until it was almost deafening, and still Armitage attacked. Her opponent was in agony, and it was losing, and that was a damned good thing.

Lightning crackled wildly just a few metres overhead, drowning out everything and almost deafening Haruka herself, and leaving the air tingling with static. The tips of her fingers felt like they'd been pressed against a hot grill, burnt and sore. She swore, loudly and creatively, and then started channelling energy back into her other hand.

"Stupid fucking lightning," she yelled at…well, who knows, really? She looked up, at the swirling storm clouds above, and shook her fist. "Whose side are you on here, anyway!"

As if in reply, the wind that had been all night long trying to batter her down to the ground…stopped. The rain ceased, as abruptly as if someone had simply flicked a switch. Lightning still crackled and spat as it ran all about the surface of the cloud, and from deep within thunder still rumbled, almost like some sort of huge reaction were taking place concealed inside that thick black shroud. The strange tingling sensation crawling all over her bare skin, static building in the air, it was getting thicker and stronger by the second. It was like being jammed between two giant electrodes.

She turned back to the Orphan, ever angrier, and yelled at it again, "What are you planning, damn it!" It answered with a scream.

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Mikoto stood perched at the very edge, leaning out over the precipice without hint of trepidation. Her bare feet shifted against the soaking concrete ledge, slapping wetly as she swapped her weight from one side to the other and back again.

"Mikoto!" Mai looked somewhere between furious and distraught, dashing across the roof towards the young girl. She was still panting slightly from the sudden rush up so many flights of stairs in such a hurry. She ran out at full head and didn't stop until she was within reaching distance of her young charge, upon which she keeled forward violently and put both hands on the sturdy grey stone ledge and panted heavily.

"I'm…not as fit as…I thought," she heaved between breaths, trying to laugh self-consciously and failing. Mikoto didn't seem to be paying much attention though; the girl's face was turned up to the sky above and her eyes narrowed, unblinking, focused on the bright flashing specks fluttering wildly about under the thick cloud cover.

"I have to go," she announced resolutely. "I have to stop it."

"Damn it, Mikoto, get down from there right now!" When the girl bluntly refused to reply, Mai hissed and bashed one fist angrily against the concrete ledge.

The young girl turned her head back to look over her shoulder, showing a most determined expression on her face. Her features were hard set, steadfast against Mai's protest; the redhead found her arguments quickly dissolving in futility.

"I have to protect Mai," declared Mikoto just as tenacious as before. She turned her gaze back up to the sky, and the narrow tails of her hair wafted dramatically out behind her from her head, the thin white shirt wrapped about her ruffling in the breeze. "I have to stop them, or they'll hurt Mai. I can't let anyone…I can't let that happen…not ever…"

"Mikoto…" The older woman shook her head frantically, her eyes stinging with a mixture of the sharp chill in the air and sudden bewilderment. "What are you talking about, Mikoto? You're talking like…"

"You don't remember," interrupted Mikoto, rounding on her with that same resolved expression on her face, amber eyes gleaming. "You've forgotten."

"Remember…remember what?"

Mikoto blinked. "I remember…I…remember…" She shook her head from side to side dismissively. "I remember! I know…who… Mai, don't you remember? Don't…don't you know…" Confusion replaced obstinacy as her eyes darted about from her hands to her feet, to her makeshift guardian.

"Mikoto, you're not making any sense!"

A flash of blindingly bright light splashed across the roof, illuminating everything in sharp contrast for barely a second before fading away again. A few moments later, there came a most terrific crashing boom, like the ground was splitting apart. A second flash of lightning came not too long after, then a third, followed by more deafening thunder behind it. Mai looked up towards the source of all that light and noise with a curious expression, as did her young companion too.

At the base of the colossal towering cloud structure, a minute shape was forming; a disk of shining golden-red and orange and yellow, roiling like flames. At the sight of it, Mai felt her head throbbing inside.

It was…familiar.

_The ocean crashing up against the rocks far below, sprayed thick white foam up in hissing sheets that leapt up over the cliff-side and showered over those assembled like a heavy rain. The air was a raging beast, sweeping and diving like some terrible invisible monster trying to claw the cliff apart. Out across the sea, lights flickered on the horizon. Thin trails of white smoke arced up into the air and dashed across the sky towards the coast…_

Mai felt her knees trembling under her. Her heart was pounding furiously in her chest, and her head was ringing like there was a bell stuck over it and someone was bashing away with a hammer. Her fingers clenched up tightly until her nails stung her palms.

"_Don't get the wrong idea! Nothing happened here!"_

"_That's insane!"_

"_There's no need to go running into a conflict. I'm sure there's a way…"_

"_Why resist it? This is the purpose for which you were created!"_

Words in her head, all jumbled up, all racing around inside her mind at different speeds, all yelling at her at once. It was deafening. Her hands went to her head reflexively and her knees gave out without warning, dropping her down to the concrete roof with a soft thump. Mikoto jumped down from her ledge and started yelping at her in a panic, but she couldn't hear anything past the roar of voices in her brain.

_Up high in the sky, beneath a beautiful cloudy blue sunset, a huge plain of fire erupted from nowhere. The air split open and flames poured out like water. The heat was tremendous. Writhing from out of that eternal fiery hell came the figure of an immense dragon, a legless winged beast all in white and wreathed in flame, with many eyes hidden about its head, and a huge dagger embedded through its snout._

_The God of Destruction._

Kagutsuchi.

Mai's head was ready to explode, and still it wouldn't stop. Her body rolled forward until her forehead touched the soaking concrete.

"Get out," she mumbled, deliriously. Her voice broke as she screamed out, "get out of my head!"

_The fire was all around, still consuming what few trees left standing. Where there had been before a thick patch of forest, now was a clearing, scorched and barren earth around a huge elongated crater that still glowed with incredible heat._

_Mai looked down at the ground from her perch atop the great dragon's shoulder and saw no sign of the young girl._

"This doesn't make sense!" Mai's voice was turning hoarse from her screaming already, mostly an inarticulate wailing that overcame her body whenever her awareness was consumed within yet another bewildering vision. There was blood and skin under her fingernails and the palms of both hands stung unbearably.

"_You killed him!"_

_Mikoto looked up at her with a dead expression on her face._

"_Eh?"_

"_You killed Takumi!"_

_Unstoppable rage boiled up within her. All the fury of the great God of Fire was at her fingertips, to be unleashed at any moment. Against any foe._

"_DIE!"_

"No!" Mai shook her head frantically against the images, pounding her forehead against the concrete until it hurt. "NO! This isn't real!" The voices came faster and thicker, jumbled into each other, all trying to speak at once, yelling at her from inside her own brain. Vision flashed behind her eyes faster than she could follow. It was all so…familiar.

"_This is the purpose for which you were created."_

"Tokiha!"

Something was grabbing at her shoulder, but it was already too late. Her consciousness couldn't take any more. Her fist unclenched and her knees stopped shaking as all the muscles in her body went limp. Her body keeled over to one side with a wet splash as she hit the concrete.

"TOKIHA!"

Someone…someone was screaming her name. She tried to open her eyes and saw only a storm of colours.

"_This is your purpose…"_

…to destroy.

To kill.

She lashed out as hard as she could with both arms at the figure hovering over her. Her body convulsed. Her eyes went wide. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Something lashed across her face with a sharp crack and knocked her senseless.

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The clouds were parting. The tremendous mass of darkness hanging over the city was spinning even faster than before, and in the very centre, the clouds parted. Slowly, the parting grew, until it became a narrow hole all the way up to the top of the storm and out. Then it spread, widening out ever so slowly, showing more and more of the clear starlit sky through the gap in the immense cloud cover, like a tunnel to another world. Unseen by eyes on the ground, the upper part of the monolithic tower blossomed out like a gigantic flower to reveal a dazzling aurora of light and colours, twisting and winding in on itself in ever-increasingly more complex patterns, tightening down into a single bright point that was every colour at once.

Down below, Armitage was getting furious. More scratches littered her arms and legs, even one across her cheek, blood trickling over her skin in thin streams. The muscles all along her arms stood out in sharp relief, tensed and ready, and her thighs were bunched up thick as she squeezed her hands into fists. Her teeth ground together with an audible scraping noise.

As the clouds parted above her head, moonlight streamed down over her like some sort of heavenly spotlight, illuminating her features in sharp relief. She grinned a decidedly malicious grin, the moonlight lending her an almost inhumanly evil aura. Her eyes narrowed malevolently at her opponent.

She opened her mouth to say something awe-inspiring, but a bright golden light flashed off to her left far below, jarring her attention.

A golden beam of light raced up through the air and collided with that beastly Orphan in a bright flash. The beam faded, the light resolved into the figure of a tall and vaguely feminine person of some description, body mostly obscured by a heavy, billowing black cloak and an enormously broad-rimmed black hat. The figure held one arm aloft in front, thrusting upward. Haruka looked closer, and discovered that the figure's entire left hand from just behind the wrist was instead replaced by a long, flat blade that glowed with an eerie golden yellowish light. The blade had driven itself straight into the underbelly of the Orphan upon impact until the tip protruded from its upper edge, gleaming wetly. Thick orange blood oozed down the figure's forearm and dripped from a bony elbow.

The Orphan gave a last, agonised screech, and then evaporated into a thousand pieces. With it, vanished the howling cyclone winds and the directionally challenged rain, and even the clouds above were starting to dissolve. However, that mysterious figure stayed floating still where the creature had been slain, the blade glowing brighter yet.

"Negating dimensional field…"

"Huh?" Haruka shifted back into an anticipatory stance. "What the hell?"

The glowing yellow light died without a sound. High above, where no one would really notice, the ball of writhing energy winked out of existence like a light being switched off.

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Yet again, the car rolled to a gentle stop. Only the driver seemed to notice; the lone passenger was still engrossed in staring off into the middle distance, a glazed look in her eyes. When there came a tapping on the blacked-out window separating the passenger area from the driver's cab, it took her quite a while to even notice.

"Yes?" She tapped one carefully manicured fingernail impatiently against the wooden panel armrest beside her, her weight resting on her elbow as she leaned against the thing lethargically.

"There's a call for you, Fumiyoshi-sama. It's the committee line."

She snapped up the receiver set into the armrest and brought it at once to her ear, a dark expression clouding her face. "Fumiyoshi," she declared in a decidedly acidic tone of voice. "What do you want now?"

As the other person talked, her expression shifted from dangerously grim to acute irritation, and her fingers found their way back down to start drumming against the armrest by her side. She tipped her head slightly, and all that thick lavender-coloured hair came rushing down to obscure her face like a curtain being drawn. She blew at it with frustration, but it refused to move.

"Damn it," she replied at last, sitting up a little straighter. "Where do you get off telling me how to run my own company? Don't you think I know what I'm doing after ten years? I hope I don't have to remind you, I may look like a child to you, but looks aren't everything."

She turned quiet again as that _imbecile_ on the other end started spouting more garbage, twisting her narrow mouth into an agitated scowl.

"No, you listen to _me_, you little pencil-pushing bitch," she interrupted, loudly. "You keep your own damned opinions to yourself. You're paid to advise that bastard Minagi, well you can advise him this. Tell him I know what I'm damn well doing and if he thinks he can do a better job, he'll just have to come to Tokyo and see for himself! That idiot already screwed these girls over _twice_ now. They're not his personal fucking toys, they're extremely valuable property and moreover, they're still more human than not. They deserve to be handled as such!" She paused and took a very deep breath.

"Oh, and one more thing. Tell him if I hear another single one of his stupid dance metaphors, I swear, I'm going to get Kotetsu to screw him over so hard, HE'LL be the one wearing the fucking dress for the rest of his life!"

She slammed the phone down hard. Then she picked it up and slammed it again so hard the plastic cracked.

For a while, she just sat there being extremely pissed off, grating her teeth and digging her nails into the upholstery until it started ripping. Eventually, she calmed down far enough to close her eyes, take a nice deep, long breath and relax back into her seat again. Her heart was still pounding in her chest and her temper still felt frayed to the very last thread, so she took another deep breath, followed by a third. Somewhere along the way, she ended up with her knees together, hands in her lap, her head back and her eyes closed, humming softly to herself. Her tension swiftly disappeared once she really got into it, just the way it usually did.

"Thank the Kami for mother's stupid yoga classes," she muttered to herself without moving her lips. Oh, now she was doing it again, talking inside her own head. Bad habit that.

"Stupid Minagi. Self-absorbed little brat. If I were still myself, I bet _then_ he'd listen."

She blinked her eyes open at that and looked down. Then she frowned. Her hands drifted on up to her chest. "Damn, I hate being young again. People won't listen to a flat-chested, whiny little girl."

"Perhaps you would be more comfortable back in your own body, Fumiyoshi-sama? Auricom do still have your old DNA files, don't they? I'm sure they'd be happy to rebuild it for you."

The pink-haired girl smiled cheerfully at the darkened window, beyond which, hid that familiar face behind the wheel. "Thank you, Juno-san, but… I'm kind of attached to this one now. Besides, I want to see the look on her face when we meet again."

"Whose face, miss?"

She rolled her eyes derisively. "Who else?"

"Ah…I see. You're awfully attached to her as well, it would seem."

The young girl blushed just a little, her lavender hair falling down either side of her face seemed to emphasise the colour in her cheeks. "Perhaps," she murmured, mostly to herself. "She has a habit of growing on people."

She lapsed back into silence as the car moved away again. For a long while, her eyes were shut and her breathing levelled out and she drifted somewhere just beyond full consciousness, in the calm and peaceful void inside her own mind. It was definitely therapeutic, but then mother had always had a knack for cooling people off. It was so serene, in fact, that she once again failed to register her name being called until about the fifth attempt.

"Fumiyoshi-sama! Please, wake up, it's urgent."

"I wasn't asleep," huffed the young pink-haired girl, uncrossing her legs and jabbing a finger at one of the buttons on the armrest. There was a soft click from the speaker set in the ceiling. "Who is it and what do you want?"

"It's Tatami," answered a non-descript and rather androgynous voice, highly toned and softly spoken. "Miss Fumiyoshi, the committee would like to inform you that there has been a slight change of plans."

"I'm well aware of the changes to the deployment schedule, thank you very much Tatami."

"I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than you might think, Miss. The committee decided that, while a Japanese military presence in Tokyo would not be too suspicious in the eyes of the public, the situation at hand is accelerating more rapidly than they had planned. A vote was cast and it has already been agreed that the remaining five units will not be ready for the trials on time and, as such, are due to be dismantled and decommissioned."

The young businesswoman-come-princess gasped and slapped a hand down on the armrest by her side. "That…that is unacceptable! And just what do they plan to do with the five of them once all the augmentations…?" She slumped back into her seat with a heavy sigh. "No, don't tell me. I'm sure I can guess."

"Also, the committee have agreed to grant Mr. Reinsfield's company a covert military presence within the city in case the conditions escalate any further, since the Japanese Self-Defence Forces would be more than outmatched should another Orphan appear without any of the project units available to intercept it. I have-"

She stabbed angrily at another button and the line cut out with a satisfying click. Her other hand was still balled into a fist, shaking wildly by her side, her nails clawing into her palm. "Idiots," she spat under her breath. "Leave everything to the very last second and then they expect our external contractors to cover up all the holes. And what of BAE themselves? Couldn't they have planned for this from the very beginning?"

A most wicked thought skipped across the back of her mind, bringing a grimace to her face. "Oh, I'm sure they'd _love_ the chance to show that damned Armitage of theirs off to everyone in the G8 if they could. Smug foreign bastards."

"I'll make a detour, shall I, Fumiyoshi-sama? To the nearest park…"

Once again, her smile turned a little sweeter and her tensed facial muscles slackened. "Thank you, Juno-san. I suppose it would help to calm down a little before my engagement." She took another very deep breath, closed her eyes and started humming softly to herself.


	5. Chapter 5 : Reprieve

By dawn, the sky had cleared up considerably. All the cloud, wind and rain from the night before had disappeared completely, as if they had never even been in the first place. The sky just after sunrise was a deep ocean blue, smattered here and there with thick clumps of soft, fluffy white clouds. The sun was already drifting up through the sky before anyone had the time to notice, sliding up off the horizon, the last few tinges of pink across the bottom edges of the clouds slowly fading away. It was a beautiful, pastel-coloured kind of sky that morning, so quiet and peaceful, with only the sounds of a few scattered birds chirping away in the trees around the city. Such a beautiful morning indeed.

The kind of morning she would have loved.

Arika breathed a regretful sigh. Brand new world to live in, all kinds of strange things to explore, so many new people to meet and places to go, such endless adventure to be had. Despite it all, here she was stuck in a hotel room with Nina, under orders to stay put. She couldn't even get out and enjoy the morning air, or go walk around in that huge park down behind the hotel. It was like being stuck in a gourmet restaurant with plenty of money, but then told that you couldn't order anything.

"Well," she huffed to herself, "like Granny says, "if you give something, you'll get something back"…I think." She shook her head. "Besides, I can have fun in here by myself until Miyu gets back."

"Arika," came a weak mumble from behind her, back in the room. "Arika…where are you? Are you out there?" There was a pause before that voice continued, much more irritated, "and what did you do with the sheet?"

Arika waited, and waited…and waited. Still, the owner of that voice refused to show herself. A minute stretched on for hours, or maybe she just had no patience, until she eventually turned about on one foot and slid the curtain aside to let the morning sunlight into the room. Nina yelped at first, clutching her hands up to try to cover herself lest anyone be looking in from outside. When she looked up again, however, her attention was well and truly diverted.

Instead of Arika standing on the balcony naked, or dressed in part of the curtains or some other strange collection of articles as Nina might have expected, there was a very different person standing there.

Perhaps yes, she was a little short, but she did indeed look quite the young girl, her facial features were delicately carved, fine orange eyebrows and surprisingly long black lashes that emphasised her deep blue eyes. A mildly amused expression was scrawled across her face, her eyes sparkling within, her narrow lips curled at their edges, smiling softly as she returned the look. Thick orange hair fell to either side of her face and down the back of her neck past her shoulders, instead of the usual "antennae." Without that ridiculously childish hairstyle, she looked entirely more mature and dignified. The outfit helped considerably, of course.

Her shoulders were bare, and all the way down her arms too. In an amusing little twist of irony, she had fashioned the same sort of halter-top dress as the one she had worn when she had broken into Garderobe in the first place and invaded the council hall. This time, however, the dress was almost lovingly put together, folded over and over without a single cut to create a garment that looked almost as if it had been made that way, and held together in a very carefully tied knot behind the redhead's neck. The thin, silken purple fabric flowed down over her whole front half in a semi-loose kind of way, only gripping to her form by the time it reached her waist, where a thick band that could only be the pillowcase had been wrapped around like a belt to hold the thing on. From there it expanded outwards again, draped down over her legs until it brushed against the floor. Each side ended in a corner, and in front left a very small triangular gap where two edges intersected, showing only the slightest hint of her bare feet when she moved. Nina couldn't, perhaps thankfully, see what the back looked like. She wasn't really paying attention to that, though.

"You really do look like a princess now," she said, a little absent-mindedly. Arika giggled and Nina felt her face slowly turning as red as the other girl's hair.

"What a thing to say, Nina-chan…but we both know you're the _real_ princess, remember?" Arika grinned her usual mischievous little grin. "I should make you something, too! Or maybe we could see how this would look on you?"

Nina shook her head, trying to clear out the warm and slightly flustered sensation. "I'd prefer real clothes, thank you," she replied, taking on the somewhat snide, dissatisfied expression she had always given Arika before. "Besides, what if someone caught you looking like that? Or me, for that matter. Walking around dressing like royalty, they'd think we were being facetious or something, then we'd be in plenty of trouble…what?" Arika was laughing at her, and managing to look and sound just as juvenile as she had before despite the almost regal dress.

"Nina," she laughed between breaths, "who's going to care? As long as we're not walking around in public in our underwear or something, who's going to come arrest us for dressing the way we want?" Nina blinked. She opened her mouth, but a decent argument failed to materialise. "We're in a whole new world, Nina-chan, nobody here knows us. We can be whoever we want to be, do whatever we feel like doing."

"And you just happen to feel like flashing people in public?"

"Eh?"

"Standing out there on that balcony naked, what are you thinking?"

Arika waved a dismissive hand, laughing again. "Silly…I wouldn't do something like that. And even if I did, nobody'd see." She turned round and stepped back out onto the balcony, leaving the curtain wide behind her. "Come on, come out here and see! It's such a wonderful view from up here…"

"What do you mean?" Nina frowned. "Besides, I can't come out there, I'm still not dressed yet!"

Arika looked back over her shoulder with a devious little smirk. "The only one here to see it is me, and I've seen it all before, remember?" She laughed yet again when Nina's face started turning red again. "You're so easy to tease sometimes, Nina-chan, really."

The back of that dress was just as nice as the front, Nina noticed idly. There was nothing above the waist, given the shape of the thing, so the redheaded girl's back was completely exposed from just above the base of her spine. Nina noticed several small patches of red and couldn't keep herself from wincing slightly. Thankfully, everything from the waist down was obscured by the makeshift skirt, the belt tied off at the small of her back in a neat bow. Just like the front, the bottom edge of the dress split at the back just slightly to show the slightest glimpse of unclad feet beneath.

She shook her head to clear all those strange thoughts and tried taking a nice deep breath instead. Slowly, step by step she walked across the room to the balcony door until she was stood right behind her roommate, hidden from outside view by the edge of the curtain and by the other girl's body. She was just about to take the first step outside, really, when Arika grabbed her wrist and pulled her out with a delighted little giggle.

It really was beautiful.

Just below, at the base of the hotel, was a narrow garden that looked almost overgrown. Doubtless, it had been practically forgotten, hidden away behind the building where few would ever see it. Beyond that was a sheer drop, a concrete cliff that cut down what must have once been a rather steep hill some thirty metres high. A narrow paved road ran along the bottom of the wall, and beyond it was another of Tokyo's famous parks, this one leading off into the distance right up to the waterside. All around it stretched that huge concrete wall, for what looked like many kilometres, with dips cut into it in several places for roads to travel down through the park. It was indeed beautiful, yes, and at this time of the morning not a sole could be seen.

Nina blinked a little lethargically. "What time is it anyway?"

"Dunno," shrugged her roommate. "I just got up when the sun rose and it's been about…hmm…couple hours, maybe three?" She grinned playfully as she crossed her arms over the balcony railing and leaned up against it. "It's really pretty though, isn't it?"

"Arika…"

Arika turned her head again, a puzzled expression on her face. "Hm?"

"A-ri-ka!" The redhead yelped. "It was already dark when we got here! After everything we've just been through, you still won't even give me more than a few hours' rest!"

"Ah…Nina-chan…wait! Um…I'm sorry?"

Nina put a fingertip to one of the welts on the redhead's back and poked very gently against the skin. "Idiot!" The result was a painful cry as Arika's face scrunched up at the sensation stabbing into her nerves, and all the muscles across her back tensed up. She clasped the railing in both hands and squeezed so tight her knuckles started paling; her teeth caught on her bottom lip and bit down sharply.

Nina pulled her hand away, startled.

"S…sorry."

Arika shook her head slowly.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm alright," replied the redhead after a decently lengthy pause. "I'm almost healed now, really. It just…still kinda stings a bit." She flinched when she felt a slender fingertip brushing against the skin on her lower back, but when the sensation failed to produce the same painful stimulus she slowly relaxed back down against the railing.

"That…" Nina swallowed. Quite oblivious to her state of undress by now, she stepped up a little closer to the other girl and tipped her head down to watch her finger tracing very carefully around the largest of those blistered red patches on Arika's back. "That's from the fire, isn't it? When you caught me…"

"Actually," answered the redhead in a much subdued tone of voice, "that happened when we landed. The fire wasn't really that bad, actually." She winced again and Nina's finger dashed backward away from where it had just touched. "If we ever do get home, I'm never going through that stupid desert ever again. I don't know if I'll even be able to set foot on another beach in my life." She gave a slow shake of her head, setting all that long orange hair a-sway again, and closed her eyes. Silence swept back in for a long while, interrupted only by the ever-present buzz of cicadas and the occasional chirping of nearby birds. The sun drifted gradually ever higher and the pink edges finally disappeared from the clouds, even as they began to thin out under the baking assault of that bright summer sunlight. It was almost therapeutic, such tranquillity, until Arika noticed a very soft sniffling coming from just behind her.

Nina looked like she was crying; her head down, lips moving wordlessly, a trail of water trickling down her cheek as her fists shook against her sides.

"Nina-chan?" Arika reached a tentative hand out to the other girl's shoulder and met no resistance. "Nina, are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I don't…I don't want to go back," whimpered the dark-haired girl in a slightly uneven voice. She shook her head firmly from side to side, as if trying to reaffirm herself of her own words, and repeated, in a much more forceful tone, "I don't _ever_ want to go back!"

Arika was, needless to say, more than a little bit shocked by the sudden outburst, so that her hand darted away from its intended target as if it had been burnt. Her lower lip quivered while words dashed back and forth in her head, trying to form into some coherent sentence. "But…" She tried reaching back out again rather hesitantly and carried on with the first thing that came to mind, "what about…your friends? All the people at the academy…and Sergei-"

Nina slapped her hand away.

For a few moments, neither of them could find anything more to say. Arika imagined her grandmother sighing disappointedly and shaking her head, and that wouldn't really have surprised her. Stupid.

"I'm sorry," mumbled Nina after a considerable pause, and turned her back on her companion again. She only managed half a step towards the door before a hand grasped firmly on her shoulder and stopped her in her tracks.

"Nina, wait… Don't apologise." Arika shook her own head, trying for a slightly rueful half-grin. "_I_ should be apologising to _you_. I shouldn't have said something so…"

"…callous?" finished the other girl in a flat tone of voice. "I suppose."

Arika couldn't keep from chewing on her bottom lip as she put her other hand on Nina's hip and slid a little closer. "Please…don't be like that. I hate to think that we still can't get along any more, even after everything we've been through and all."

Arika waited a painfully long time for a reply, but the dark-haired girl seemed resolutely uninterested in continuing the conversation in any way. She finally gave up and turned to go back inside when a hand clutched tenuously at the side of her improvised dress.

"I don't…hate you," muttered Nina uncomfortably. "I never _hated_ you, however annoying you might get sometimes. I just…" She trailed off, her eyes falling down to the floor to watch her feet shuffle back and forth awkwardly. "I just…" She was abruptly cut off when Arika clasped arms about her waist and pulled her close. She felt moisture on her shoulder, and an unpleasant twist in her stomach when she realised the redhead was actually crying.

"I don't want us to ever fight like that again," mumbled Arika between sniffs. Her hands screwed into fists and pressed tight against Nina's bare shoulder blades. "Because I love you, Nina." Nina opened her mouth to protest, but Arika repeated, more confidently, "I love you."

Nina felt her arms sliding round that narrow body in return, and just held on loosely, trying her own hardest not to cry herself.

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The pain was unbearable, unimaginable, indescribable. Such agony was beyond all the words in all the languages in the world. It was a deafening, paralysing, mind-numbing kind of pain. It was…

Haruka flinched. Again.

"Really now, Haruka, I can't do this if you don't keep still!"

The mustard-haired woman pouted angrily and buried her face against the pillow beneath which her hands were fortunately hidden, clutching tight into the mattress, long, manicured fingernails punching holes into the fabric. It was _painful_ all right, but she at least had enough pride to hide it well. When the stinging swarmed in all over her shoulder blades again, she just bit her bottom lip as hard as she could without breaking skin and suppressed the tortured squeal that yearned to be let loose.

She whimpered, very softly, under her breath.

On the one hand, it was unbelievably painful. They were only scratches, cuts, scrapes, a few slight scorch marks at the very worst, but having that damned cloth smeared on them almost felt like someone stabbing her in the back with a red-hot lance. Whoever said paper cuts were the worst kind of pain had clearly never had _this_ done to them. Furthermore, despite having acquired the most ludicrously expensive room in the most unspeakably luxurious hotel in the whole city, the bed was rather lumpy and the sheet was more than a little rough, which ended up naturally rubbing Haruka quite the wrong way.

However, all of the pain and discomfort put together was nothing compared to being face-down naked on a strange bed, her similarly nude wife straddled across her waist from behind. It was all just a little too much to take, almost.

Almost.

The stinging feeling disappeared again after a few moments, and was finally replaced with the soothing sensation of a cool, dry cloth of some sort being dabbed across the wounds. As she worked on up along all those smooth, well-toned back muscles with the one hand, Yukino leant forward and planted her other hand on the prone woman's left shoulder and squeezed her fingertips very gently into the edge of Haruka's collarbone.

_Very_ almost. Almost, and getting closer every second.

Yukino sighed again, for about the tenth time that morning, while one fingernail traced a delicate pattern around the wounds on her lover's rather badly scored back, including one or two that weren't exactly fresh. Her voice was drifting somewhat wearily from amused to almost anxious when she spoke again, "Haruka, really, you should be more careful. I'm getting used to doing this for you, and that's _not_ a good thing."

"You don't enjoy this?" Haruka tried to chuckle deviously and instead yelped in pain at a finger jabbing between her shoulder blades.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. You _know_ I don't like seeing you hurt like this," argued the brunette in an even more insistent tone of voice. "One of these days I'm afraid-"

"-Don't be," Haruka cut her off, lifting her upper half off the bed with her hands and taking her wife's modest weight in stride. Yukino, for her part, seemed completely unfazed by the manoeuvre herself. "It'd take far more than a few cuts and bruises to stop the Armitage, and there's certainly nothing I've faced yet that could even come _close_ to really hurting me." Yukino opened her mouth, but the mustard-haired woman beat her to it yet again, turning over onto her back with those legs still wrapped about her waist until she could reach up and tap the brunette's nose with one chiding finger. "Besides, it's _you_ that I'm worried about, personally."

"I know," sighed Yukino, a little resignedly. "Deep down, you're still just the same impudent young girl I used to know, aren't you? I'm certainly never going to get you to stop being so….so…"

"…butch?"

"…reckless," she finished. "You're always so impulsive, Haruka-chan, always rushing straight into things all the time. Sometimes, I worry I don't know how to keep up with you." She sighed yet again and laid her head down against Haruka's chest, leaving the cloth in her hand to fall off the edge of the bed as she relaxed into place.

"Then tell me off, if that's what you want. Tell me to stop," Haruka was mumbling in her ear, her voice showing the fatigue of staying up all night fighting. "Tell me to quit showing off so much, anything at all. You know I'd do it if you told me to…"

Yukino looked up and caught her gaze, a calm, tender kind of glow in her more commonly unreadable grey eyes. "I like you just the way you are," she declared firmly, and then kissed the mustard-haired woman right on her lips.

"Really?" teased Haruka with a hint of a smirk. For a moment, the brunette honestly looked thoughtful, and then finally flashed her own grin down at her partner.

"No, I don't think that's right, actually." Before Haruka could become too confused, she kissed her again, and then clarified, "I _love_ you."

"That's better."

Yukino pouted. "Haruka-chan…you're so mean sometimes." Haruka just grinned at her some more and wound her arms tight around the brunette's body. There was a brief and half-hearted bout of wrestling, which only one of them really seemed to put any effort into, and they finally ended up back on the bed again in much the same position, except that now Yukino found herself trapped underneath the far stronger woman, her arms up over her head in a most suggestive pose.

Suddenly, and quite unusually, Haruka sighed. She let go of the other woman's wrists and laid her head down on Yukino's much less impressive chest as one finger found its way to her wife's stomach to start idly tracing out odd little patterns across the skin.

"I can't enjoy this," she mumbled, pouting.

"What do you mean you can't enjoy this?"

Haruka looked up, with an expression that was part irritation and part depression. "If we have the most amazing sex ever right now, I'll still be awake all night afterwards stressing over that thing with that stupid Orphan." As much as Yukino might like to congratulate herself at least for rubbing the _right_ habits off on her oft dangerously over-worked partner, the lack of that usual sparkle in Haruka's brilliant lavender eyes was more than a little worrying. She put her arms around the mustard-haired woman's neck and held tight.

"What about it," she asked in a soft, soothing tone of voice. "I thought you killed it, didn't you? You got rid of it and that's that."

Haruka shook her head. "That's not it, though," she protested sharply. "I _didn't_ kill it, that woman did!" She beat her fist very gently against the smaller woman's chest in a half-serious display of anger. "I have to find out who she is, and what she has to do with these stupid Orphans."

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"Well, that depends on who's asking."

"You know you can trust me."

Midori raised an eyebrow. "Do I? How can I be so sure, I mean, you do work for the enemy, after all."

"I've always been sceptical about this project. Having seen what these girls have gone through, twice now if not more, I know I'm against drawing things out any further. I'd much rather we put them all back where they belong and be done with it."

"And would you say the same for Arika?"

The pink-haired girl hesitated. The spoon in her fingers quivered almost imperceptibly. "What kind of a question is that," she shot back hastily.

"Would you rather stick her back on the streets where we found her?" Midori inhaled another chunk of pancake seemingly without stopping to chew, and glared across the table. "You think she'd enjoy begging for food? Or maybe she'd end up selling her body instead. She's certainly got the kind of figure that men go for these days; so young and-"

"-I get the point! You really have no shame, you know that?" Mashiro leant back into her seat, attempting to compose herself while the older woman smirked at her across the table. "You certainly know how to push people's buttons, I'll give you that."

Midori made a derisive sound. "Speak for yourself. I seem to remember you being on the _other_ team on this one."

"Things change," the young princess answered softly, her expression at last back to normal. "People change too, and not all of us can come out of something like this and still be as self-assured as yourself, Sugiura-san." Her face remained almost blank as she continued, "or would you rather I call you "Boss" this time?"

"You shouldn't talk about pushing buttons with tack like that, Fumiyoshi-san. I'm sorry," Midori waved one hand apologetically and bowed her head in a show of mock respect, "Queen Mashiro, isn't it?"

The younger declined to argue, and instead went back to picking away at her dessert with the narrow plastic spoon in her hand. Midori waited for a moment or two before shrugging and re-asserting her place in the food chain above her pancakes. For a short while, neither of them spoke, and the sounds of everyday life surrounded them, almost as if everything was perfectly normal.

Then Mashiro spoke up.

"Whatever the MIYU is up to, it doesn't seem to be planning on accommodating either of us at any time soon. If I were to guess," she suggested carefully, "I'd say it's getting more involved with the Gamma unit than I'd anticipated."

Midori set her fork down noisily on the table and glared at her. "They have _names_ you know," she half-growled. "If you really want me to believe that you're working for their benefit, the least you could do is show them some respect."

"Have you forgotten who I am?" Mashiro gestured to herself with one hand and out to the crowded restaurant with the other, conservatively of course so as not to raise too much unwanted attention. "Being the head of an internationally recognised and highly lucrative company makes me an easy target for many factions, not the least of which the media. You learn to choose your words carefully in a position such as mine."

"And _you_ forget," grunted Midori, mouth half full of pancake and syrup and pointing at the young businesswoman with her fork, "that the last thing your big powerful friends want is public exposure, and that's just what I intend to give them." She grinned. "Anyhow, what about the 'droid? Not like I didn't warn you that it'd be up to something you can't see."

Mashiro pressed her lips together tightly and squeezed her spoon. "Indeed," she intoned irritably. "It worries me no end, however, knowing that someone I'd call a close friend is under the supervision of that…thing. I have no way of knowing what it's been telling her or even if she's still alive by now."

"Oh she's alive alright," chuckled the older woman. "She's about as alive as they come. In fact, the other night, she broke out of the Sixth District hospital with her little girlfriend and practically demolished part of the building on the way out. Gave one of those "containment" bastards a good work-over too," she finished with a grin, and nodded triumphantly. "Nice to know those 'stormtroopers' of yours are getting just what they deserve."

"Oh, I'm sure that amused you no end. I hear you met Armitage while you were there, as well."

Midori set her fork down again with a clatter. "They really pulled out all the stops with that on, I can tell you that much. She's built like a tank and just about as dangerous. She beat that Orphan to a pulp all by herself, hardly even broke a sweat! And she's about ten times better looking in real life…not that I go for that sort of girl, mind you."

Mashiro tried to hide a blush, and then frowned when her liaison started giggling at her like an errant schoolgirl. "You see what I'm trying to say of course, your highness? Arika has no home to go back to if we abandoned her, and neither do most of the others. Hell, the main reason we chose them was for their lack of attachments. So that they "wouldn't be missed," isn't it?"

"So, if we let them go, they'd end up homeless and destitute or worse, is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"None of them have any valid qualifications, since none of them legally exist." Midori scraped her fork through the remaining puddle of honey on her plate. "Without our help, they're as good as dead. You want to just throw them all away like that, or would you rather do something useful?"

"When you put it like that," scowled the youngster, "I suppose you have a decent argument."

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"Did you sleep well?"

Natsuki blinked wearily. "Hm?" One hand leaned against the corner of the desk and the other rubbed briefly over her eyes while she yawned. "What was that?"

"I asked you if you slept soundly, though by the looks of it that would be a no." Shizuru shook her head and sighed exasperatedly. "I never knew you were such a worrier to stay up all night like that."

"It's nothing," was the abrupt reply. "I was up all night yesterday too, chasing some stupid..." She shook her head. "No, never mind. You'd just bug me about it anyway."

Shizuru pouted at her, or as close to pouting as Shizuru ever came when she was in a really serious mood. The dark-haired woman chuckled at her. "I don't need you fretting and asking questions about this, okay? Just trust me when I say I know what I'm doing."

"Not even just a little background? I'd feel much better knowing what it is you get up to at night, after all."

There was a strangely uncomfortable pause while Natsuki settled herself into one of the stiff plastic chairs arrayed along the corridor wall, still blinking and yawning erratically. Shizuru felt obliged to join her, and slid as gracefully as always into place, folding one leg over the other in her usual nonchalant manner. The thick binder of documents in her hands was a considerable weight in her lap, so she took out the first loose piece she could grasp and started skimming idly through it while her companion was apparently busy waking up.

"I got a phone call last night," Natsuki relented, at last. The only reply was a mildly intrigued 'hm?' She took another deep breath, which somehow twisted into a yawn, and then backtracked. "After you called, remember, about those two girls?"

"Ah, yes." Shizuru straightened and lifted her head, gazing off into the distance as she thought to herself. "Our young "escapees," yes, I remember. I called you just after midnight if I recall correctly."

"Well just after that, somebody else called me. To be honest, I'm a little worried that he has my number, but I suppose I should have expected it."

"What's this," Shizuru teased. "You have a stalker now?"

"Stop being silly, this is serious." Natsuki gave the brunette a disgruntled look, which put her firmly back in place for the time being at least. "Anyway, besides my new friend, there's something important I think you'll want to see." She took out a small oblong-shaped device that fit nicely in the palm of her hand and showed it to Shizuru with a rather hesitant expression.

"What?" Shizuru frowned. "There's something wrong, isn't there."

"Just…check the disk," muttered Natsuki, turning away again briskly to stare off into the distance.

Shizuru gave her a curious look, but when it became obvious that the other woman simply would not comment, she sighed and dipped a hand back into her bag. Out came the familiar grey square, about the size of a paperback novel, which flicked open smoothly to show a blanked-out screen and keypad built into a narrow frame. The egg-shaped device slotted neatly into an opening on the side and at once, up came a small video feed.

It only took a second or two for Shizuru's face to turn sour.

"Oh," she muttered. "I see what you mean…"

The video was of incredibly poor quality, almost to the point that its credibility was questionable, but a room could easily be made out. The layout, Shizuru recognised immediately, was that of an operating theatre of some kind, complete with a fully laden bed in the centre. Upon which bed lay a person, female quite clearly and not that old, and seemingly unconscious, her eyes closed and most of her lower face covered by breathing apparatus. Thick, short crimson hair shrouded one eye and fell about her head in a mess on the table. Several masked, white-robed persons, presumably doctors or the like, were gathered around the table performing various duties with assorted surgical instruments, including a decent few that Shizuru couldn't recognise even at a push.

Thankfully there was no sound, but Shizuru was still pressed to suppress a grimace when the unconscious girl's left arm was totally removed from the elbow down, revealing, of all things, what looked like a mechanical joint previously concealed by living flesh. Blood poured out as copiously as was typical, promptly sucked away into the table by methods unseen, leaving no doubt as to the girl's biological nature.

"Where did you get this," Shizuru queried her rather perturbed looking companion, who was paying close attention to the floor tiles and trying not to look affected by the rather distressing images on the screen. "I won't even bother joking with you; I _know_ you're certainly not that twisted."

"It was anonymous," replied Natsuki in a voice much steadier than she felt, though she hid it admirably. "Whoever sent it, they'd obviously rather we not know, for now at least." When the disk was hesitantly offered back she simply turned away from the outstretched hand and leaned over slightly in her seat. "You can keep it. I don't need it anyway."

"I'll give it to Motoko. I'm sure she'll know what to do with it." Shizuru paused as she slipped the device, along with her PDA back into her bag, looking concernedly at her partner. "There's something else bothering you, though…"

"I think….I recognise her."

Shizuru blinked. "You mean the girl on the video, don't you?" A nod was the only reply she got. "Do you know who she is?"

"No…just that she's familiar. I feel like I know her…or like I used to know her, I don't know." Natsuki shook her head and rose briskly to her feet. "What bothers me is whoever sent that did it for a reason and I want to know what that reason is."

"I promise I'll let you know everything I find. If there's anything suspicious at all, you'll be the first to hear it."

"Then I suppose I should get back to _my_ forte, too. I should go check up on a few "friends" of mine."

"Oh, and Natsuki?" She flashed a reassuring smile when the dark-haired woman looked back over one shoulder at her. "Please, tell me you won't be doing anything too hasty?"

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Shadows are silent. They move in ways that nobody notices, go places that no one ever sees. Shadows blend into their surroundings perfectly, whatever the setting, day or night. A shadow is as natural and inconspicuous as only a shadow can be. They never arouse even the vaguest of suspicions.

The shadow moved.

In the semi-gloom inside a badly lit room, neither of the two men noticed. They kept their faces to one another instead, speaking in hushed tones and gesturing with their hands. The taller of the two had cunningly positioned himself so the darkness obscured most of his face, and all that could be made out were hard, narrow lips and a faint scar running down the left side of his sharp, angular lower jaw. He spoke in a very soft voice that barely moved his lips, making eavesdropping on the conversation almost impossible. His confidant, shorter by several centimetres at least and rather younger, judging by his build alone, was easily visible in the sharp artificial light; his dark hair and eyes were indiscriminately Japanese, as were his facial features.

Again the shadow moved, slipping through the room like water.

"…-out…"

Inching closer, right to the very edge of the enshrouding blackness, the very slightest impression of a feminine figure could be seen beneath the shadow.

"I know you're nervous, sir, and honestly… …all making this much more complicated… …told you…break out…"

The taller man held up a hand, and the shorter stopped abruptly. He shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other as his apparent superior reached up to run a finger against the edge of his chin.

"…warned… …" Anything else he said was beyond recognition.

"They won't like this," replied the Japanese man in an anxious voice. "The system still isn't ready, we need more time to set it up."

"…"

Whatever the tall man said, his partner looked more than a little shocked, almost frightened by it. He quickly regained his composure with a shake of his head. "I'll see what I can do," he sighed, looking down. "Let Beuman know we might need aerial support, his ship has that new Sukhoi squadron, doesn't it?"

"…told you… …that…"

"Mister Fa-" The Japanese man hesitated, clearly unnerved. "Captain, we really need those double-As in position by the end of the day. I can only trust you'll do your best to make it happen."

"Yes, Sir," replied the tall man, and turned to leave.

With the barest whisper of cloth on the metal floor, the shadow was gone.

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As per ordinary routine, the 12th District Tokyo hospital was relatively quiet over the lunch hour, the office section at least. Down in the lobby and around the various wards rushed nurses to and fro, patients shuttling between rooms and departments, doctors with far too little time to spare. The noise was almost unbearable, and it wasn't even a particularly busy day. Sunlight streamed in through the lobby windows and blinded everyone inside, slow-cooking most of the patients waiting in those ugly little blue plastic chairs lined up across the polished floor.

Shizuru winced, but hid it well, when the sun hit her face as she stepped out into the lobby. Her secretary, not moments behind her, showed no reaction at all, not that she actually had any. The sun in the blonde woman's eyes had about as much of an adverse effect on her as did an angry patient yelling in her face. For not the first time, Shizuru thought herself lucky to have someone so…unique under her wing, figuratively speaking.

"Ma'am," Motoko spoke just as flatly as usual.

"Yes?" Shizuru tried to sound cheerful, however difficult it was having seen all that paperwork on her desk waiting for her when she returned.

"Your date, ma'am," explained the blonde. "You're going to be late." The tone of her voice suggested she didn't care in the slightest, and that was probably true.

In a strange moment of déjà vu, Shizuru reached into her bag to retrieve the keys to her car only to have that familiar buzzing noise catch her attention. She shot her secretary an amused little smile, which was not returned, and fished her PDA out of its nesting place.

"If it's not one thing," she sighed exasperatedly.

"It's you," Motoko finished for her cynically.

"Moko-chan, be a dear and go pout somewhere else. My _real_ girlfriend wants my attention." Shizuru waved the younger woman off with one hand as her other nimbly worked the keypad on the small electrical device in her palm. She spared only the briefest glance after the blonde as she walked away, just for the sake of seeing the way the back of Motoko's miniskirt curved around the contours of her thighs when she moved. A smirk came to her lips at the sight. "Good thing I got such an adorable assistant, isn't it?"

Then the PDA demanded her attention again. She checked carefully and, there under "INCOMING" was a single file marked "urgent" from Natsuki's mobile number. She opened it up and, lo and behold, it was just as curious if not more so than she had expected.

First of all, there was what appeared to be a list of numbers all roughly twelve digits, there must have been at least a hundred or more, alongside a corresponding column of alphanumeric characters arranged in a way Shizuru didn't quite recognise.

Secondly, and more importantly, was what looked like scans taken from an identification document of some sort. Right there on the first page, blaring out at her, was a picture of a very familiar orange-haired, purple-eyed young girl in her late teens, smiling at the camera. Alongside were written a few rather troubling things.

Name: Tokiha Mai.

Age: 16.

Last known residence: unconfirmed. (Yokohama area)

Relations: Mother (name unknown) DECEASED. Father (name unknown) DECEASED. Brother (Tokiha Takumi)…

Shizuru blinked.

DECEASED.

"Okay," Shizuru murmured to herself. "That's a little worrying, isn't it then?"

She skimmed quickly through the rest of the document: everything from a physical analysis, blood tests, drug results and the like. The details were unnerving, more so in the fact that the document appeared for all intents and purposes, totally authentic. By the end, Shizuru was more than just a little bit worried.

And then she checked the line she had skipped right on the very first page…

Time of death: 17:06:52.

She looked again.

Time of death.

She shook her head. Impossible. Tokiha Mai was clearly very much alive and well, if unconscious, in a room in that very hospital at that exact moment, probably having some very relaxing dream or other. She was certainly _not_ dead. The blindingly obvious suddenly occurred to Shizuru, and she checked the document header.

"National Registry: Department of Records" was printed plain as day at the top of each page. At the bottom of the last page as expected was a signature, presumably from whoever had been on duty at the time. This was most inscrutably a certificate of the deceased, and that meant that Tokiha Mai was legally dead.

Tokiha Mai…was legally dead?

Shizuru put a hand to her forehead and sighed, as seemed to have become a habit lately. "This is just getting ridiculous," she muttered to no one in particular. "No wonder the management stuck her with Miko…to…"

Something clicked. It suddenly made sense. Shizuru suddenly knew that she didn't need to see a similar document to know that Mikoto had been long since declared dead in much the same way, not that that would stop her checking anyway just to be sure. That answered plenty of interesting questions and opened up a whole plethora of new ones.

Natsuki would doubtless have a lot of explaining to do later that afternoon.

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It was a cool, quiet afternoon in that secluded little hotel room. The hum from the air conditioning unit built into the ceiling was just barely audible, and over that came the sound of a few over-excited birds, the regular traffic along the road outside, and the ever-present drone of cicadas everywhere they could find to land. The balcony doors were open once again, letting in a gentle sea breeze that filled the air with the faint scent of salt and fish. Fortunately, the sun was on the other side of the building, so no blinding light came in through the open curtains. The lights were off, and the whole room took on a much more relaxed, lethargic sort of atmosphere.

The sheet on the bed was soaked by now, but it didn't matter. On reflection, the air conditioning hadn't really done as good of a job as they had expected, and now both the room's occupants were collapsed, naked and sweating quite profusely, on the bed, the covers left in a heap on the floor.

"I told you cooking breakfast would be too much for you," mumbled Nina through the back of her hand. "But you just wouldn't listen, would you?"

Arika rolled over onto her stomach, wincing at the feeling of sweat-soaked cloth against her belly. "Well I had to do something," she argued weakly, "or I would've gone crazy in here, do nothing all day." She sighed as heavily as she could. "It's just so _boring_ sitting her, waiting for nothing."

"Then go outside, you exhibitionist." One of her legs landed across Nina's stomach and was promptly shoved off, to a fairly pathetic attempt at a yelp from its owner. "And stop bothering me so much with how bored you are, hm?"

"Ni-ni-chan," moaned the redhead. "You're so mean sometimes. I almost regret saving your life back then…"

Nina bashed her lightly on the head with one fist. "Well _then_ who would you have to annoy, Arinko? Besides, nobody else can put up with your whining voice for as long as I can."

"Ers-chan said I have a nice voice," protested Arika, sitting upright with a disgruntled pout on her face.

"That's because you usually whined at _me_!" Nina gave her a good whack in the face with a pillow, and that sent her toppling onto her back with a yelp, arms flailing. "I was the one getting all those irritating complaints about absolutely everything. Every ten minutes, you'd start moaning about something else."

"That's not true," argued Arika, reaching for a pillow of her own and striking back with a clean uppercut to the jaw. "It just seems that way because you were so mean to me all the time! You never stopped…" She cut off when Nina whacked her square in the face again, with exactly the same result as the first time.

"You're so predictable, Arinko. I _knew_ you'd blame it on me. But who was it who filled the pool with sugar?"

"That wasn't my fault!" Arika protested loudly when the other girl moved to straddle her thighs, holding her down as the pillow "whapped" down over her face repeatedly. "I…didn't…know the…labels were…switched," she protested between hits. "And it…wasn't…me who…put those things…in the pool…in the…first place."

"Oh yeah? Well, ack…" Nina squealed and windmilled her arms as a leg tangled into her thigh and pulled her down onto her back again.

"Gotcha!" There was a brief flurry of stuffing as the slightly battered and torn pillows were discarded and Arika dove on her opponent, fingers outstretched.

"No," yelped Nina, visibly panicked. "No! Anything, _anything_ but that!"

Arika wasn't having any of that. Her fingers knew exactly what they were doing. She held the dark-haired girl pinned to the bed in much the same way as she had been restrained herself and worked her hands rapidly up and down Nina's sides and stomach, fingertips dancing over slick skin. Nina was emitting the most satisfying noise somewhere between squeals of torment and uncontrollable laughter, along with those sexy little squeaks she always made that only encouraged her attacker on even more.

A decidedly evil cackle came to Arika's lips without her even thinking of it. For a moment or two, she almost looked menacing, towering over her fallen opponent and torturing mercilessly at the other young girl's weak spot.

All of a sudden, Arika collapsed atop her target with a sigh. Nina protested quite loudly for a while, kicking her legs and batting at the redhead's shoulders, but both girls were really too drained to do much more. Eventually, they just lay there like they had before, half-awake and breathing heavily.

"It's too hot."

Arika sat up again, pigtails bouncing about wildly. "Then we'll go out and do something fun!"

"Stupid. It's even hotter out there than it is here."

Arika pouted. "You're boring, Nina-chan. Come on, it'll be fun at least." She reached and grabbed the other girl's wrist firmly in hand and pulled her up to her feet. "We can go see what this place is like! We can meet a few of the locals or whatever, get to know people, have something to eat."

Nina opened her mouth to protest but her stomach interrupted.

"See?" Arika poked her in the ribs, ignoring the blush and the protests that went along with it. "Your stomach agrees with me! We should go and spend a little of that money Miyu gave us."

"Some _clothes_ might be nice," argued Nina not too subtly. "How are we going to go walking around in public naked, in the middle of the day?"

Arika waved her free hand dismissively, smiling in a way that wasn't at all comforting. "Don't worry, Nina-chan, I'll think of something. Come on, let's go already!" With that, she half-dragged her companion out the door into a fortunately abandoned corridor, pausing only to let Nina lock the door behind them.

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Mai felt oxygen flooding her lungs, her chest expanding, her blood tingling in her veins. Muscles twitched all over her body, from the ends of her toes to the tips of her fingers, to the back of her neck and even the base of her spine. All ten digits curled up and stretched out at once, and then her hands balled up into loose fists. Her eyelids peeled back ever so slowly and she squinted against the sudden light flooding her optic nerves.

"Nuh," she uttered incoherently at first, feeling every tiny flex and twitch of all the muscles in her tongue, the way her vocal chords tightened in her throat. Her hands shifted up beside her and she put all her upper body weight onto her elbows, slowly pushing herself to sit upright. It was almost dizzying for a few moments until she gently shook her head to banish the sensation altogether, which unfortunately made her head spin and her stomach lurch.

"Mai!" an excited voice squealed just to her left. Then before she knew it, a familiar lump was leaning in against her side, arms around her middle. She looked down at that vague form and couldn't stop a quietly relieved smile from growing over her face.

"Mikoto…I'm okay." She put one hand atop the young girl's head and played her fingers through that short-cropped black hair. "I'm okay, don't worry."

Mikoto nodded emphatically, face still buried into the taller woman's chest, and made a soft affirmative sound. Mai chuckled a little self-consciously.

"Good morning, Tokiha-san," uttered a most elegant sounding female voice from somewhere off to her left. She looked up again as it continued, searching for its owner. "It's good to see that you're awake finally. Welcome to the Twelfth District hospital… again."

"Ah!" Mai felt a grin coming on as the smartly-dressed older woman in the dark brown suit came into focus at last, long chestnut hair shinier than ever with the late evening sunlight streaming in through the window opposite her. "Fujino-san… Thank you. It's nice to be back." She looked around slowly at the bland hospital room in which she suddenly found herself, and confusion bloomed on her features. "But how in the world did I get here in the first place?"

Shizuru gestured broadly with one hand towards the bed, smiling a most amused sort of smile. "Kuga-san very kindly brought you here after you apparently collapsed. She was very worried about you, actually." Mai turned her head quickly to look to her right instead and, sure enough, there she was standing in the gap between the bed and the near wall, just to the right of that wide panel window, the sunlight gleaming off one edge of her navy blue hair and obscuring most of her face in deep shadow.

"Natsuki…" Mai felt her hand slipping from the small head nuzzled against her chest and instead was reaching tentatively out towards the dark-haired woman standing beside her. "I don't know how you found me…or how you got me here, but I'm glad. I owe you a lot now."

Natsuki turned her head slightly to one side and for a moment…

"Mikoto was so worried about you, too. I'm afraid neither one of them has gotten much sleep all night." Shizuru smiled a little more politely this time, and then bowed. "As long as you're okay though, I'd best be getting back to work. Please excuse me." With that, she was out the door and gone surprisingly quickly.

An awkward silence descended, but nobody seemed to notice it. Mai was too busy returning the impromptu hugging, Mikoto was too busy enjoying just such activity and Natsuki was absorbed in her own little mental goings-on as she stared at the now closed door. It was Mikoto who eventually broke the silence; without any real sort of warning, she slumped down with her head in the redheaded woman's lap and started snoring softly, only her semi-limp legs keeping her from dropping to the floor. Mai giggled after a confused few moments and started stroking affectionately at the young girl's hair again.

"She must be exhausted," she said fondly. "Did she stay up all night to be here?"

"She wouldn't cooperate when I tried to make her go to sleep. She's almost as stubborn as you." Before she had time to turn her head round again, Mai felt a hand on her shoulder from behind. "What about you? Are you sure you're okay?"

There was another long, slightly uncomfortable pause. Mai resisted the urge to turn and look, why she didn't quite know.

"Natsuki," she finally asked, very gently indeed.

"Hm?" She paused for quite a while before the right words came to mind.

"Why are you crying?"

Natsuki hesitated just a little too long before answering. "That's silly," she replied dismissively, turning to face across the window so that her face was obscured by the time Mai turned towards her. "Why would I be crying? You're okay, after all, aren't you?"

Again, for just the briefest second, Mai thought she saw…something. But it was gone when she blinked.

She opened her mouth to apologize, for what exactly, she wasn't really sure, but the other woman cut her off again. "You should go back to sleep, Tokiha. You need rest after collapsing like that." Natsuki took a long, deep yawn and arched her back out in a way that looked almost painful. "Kami knows, _I_ need it, after carrying you down all those…" she trailed off.

Mai smiled somewhat playfully. "You carried me all the way down that building. How sweet of you." Then she blinked again. "But…it's not just that, is it?" She looked up and down the figure beside her once more, her first real look since she had blacked out the previous night, and she definitely noticed that odd something. "You weren't riding…were you? You didn't…"

"Didn't what?" came the answer in a slightly sharper tone of voice.

"You did, didn't you? You carried me all the way here…"

"Not like it was that tough or anything. I can bench-press my own bike after all, shit, we _both_ can. Remember?"

Mai giggled, which brought much confusion. "For a white knight, you're a little shy."

"And you're crazy," replied Natsuki, blushing quite beautifully. Mai knew the dark-haired woman thought she hadn't noticed, what with the lighting and all, and she said nothing, but she was certainly enjoying herself on the inside. "Now just go back to sleep, would you?"

"Awww…I love you too," teased the redhead, but she did finally roll back onto her side and let her eyes slip shut, her arms wrapped around Mikoto's upper body just in case the youngster decided to fall down while she slept.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that…"


	6. Chapter 6 : Calm Before

The scene of downtown Tokyo at night was indeed an impressive one. Endless shopping arcades adorned with an eclectic assortment of bright lights and neon signs, streets upon streets lined with glaringly bright displays, the light midnight traffic rushing to and fro, scattered crowds of people wandering this way and that. It was as if the whole city had become a singular entity, bright, busy and bustling even in the dead of night. The starry backdrop above was lost behind the pale orange glow of artificial light leaking skyward.

Two young girls walked side by side down a particularly empty high street; or rather, one walked, the other almost skipped along with a silly grin plastered over her face, giggling like a maniac. The spastic redhead hopped back and forth merrily, head turning every which way as she took stock of her surroundings, her bizarre hairstyle bouncing and flailing as she moved. The other girl, dark hair left hanging loose around her head, wore a disgruntled frown and walked with her arms crossed in front of her, watching her companion and sighing irritably every now and then.

"Come on," urged the redhead, reaching out and grabbing her partner's wrist. The other girl gave a surprised yelp when she was promptly dragged along the street towards a brightly lit clothing store. "Hurry up, Ni-na, or we'll be spending all night buying clothes. I wanna go and do something fun!"

"You're intolerable," groaned Nina. She snatched back her hand and shot the redhead another frown. "Dragging me out in public like this, you're shameless!"

Arika stopped and turned to look at her, bringing a slight blush to her cheeks. Her arms and legs were bared completely, her top half only covered by the briefest of short-sleeved white blouses, with a colourful blue-and-yellow patterned strip all around the hem and collar. It stopped halfway down her stomach, only just covering her navel and leaving a narrow band of bare skin all the way around between the blouse and the top edge of the pleated blue-and-yellow striped skirt that attempted to cover her lower portions. At least _that_ did its job properly, falling all the way down almost to the girl's knees and making any sort of indecent exposure highly unlikely.

Arika gave her an innocent grin that could almost be considered lecherous, if it were anyone else. "But Nina-chan is so se-xy in that!"

"We must look really suspicious," complained Nina, gesturing to the redhead's own slightly more conservative choice of dress; the same unwashed and rather messy thick brown coat that they had salvaged the night previous, that reached midway down Arika's calves and fell straight past her fingertips, concealing everything from neck to ankle. Thankfully, it had stayed shut so far… "You look like some perverted old man or something."

Arika pouted as she sidled up next to her companion and slipped an arm round the dark-haired girl's bare waist. "You're so mean sometimes, Nina-chan," she whined.

"Only because you deserve it." Nina squealed when the redhead flicked up the back of her skirt, exposing her naked derriere to all and sundry. "Don't do that," she yelped, holding the garment back down with both hands to cover her rear. "Someone might see!"

"Then you should have worn panties," huffed Arika, sticking her tongue out again.

"You don't have to say it so everyone can hear!" Nine fumed at her, face turning crimson, and Arika ducked away giggling impishly. "It's not my fault the hotel staff don't leave lingerie lying about."

Arika gave her a mildly condescending look. "I could have broken one of the lockers open, you know."

"That's stealing! What would the Principal say?" Before she could protest any further, she was grabbed firmly by the wrist again and forcibly dragged into an unfamiliar store.

Store after store they went through in much the same way; Arika dashing in recklessly with a feebly resisting Nina in tow, throwing various garments at the dark-haired girl and generally using her as a clotheshorse. Unsurprisingly, most of what they saw was eventually relinquished for lack of funds, Nina having somehow managed to convince her companion that blowing all their money on clothes would be a little short sighted of her. As they went along through various different stores the trends in attire changed, sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatically from one to the next. One moment Nina was wobbling back and forth in high heels and long skirt, the next she was trying to cover herself through an immodestly skimpy bikini.

"Ni-na! Ni-na!"

Nina somehow managed to turn on one heel without falling over, quite an impressive manoeuvre given she'd only been wearing them for a few minutes at the most, and peered over to where her antagonising companion was all but hopping up and down in front of the store window with excitement. She resisted the urge to put one hand on her forehead and instead simply sighed, a sound of long-suffering well past her actual age.

"What is it now?" The deep blue skirt billowed out behind her somewhat as she hurried across the room to where the redhead stood, pointing and staring happily out of the window at something across the street. "Not _more_ clothes, please, I think we've spent quite enough money for one night."

Arika shook her head emphatically from side to side, a huge grin on her face. "Over there!" She stabbed a finger at the glass, pointing to a wide glass-fronted establishment of some kind with a variety of gaudy neon lighting adorning its windows.

"It looks like…" Nina sighed again. "I don't know _what_ it could be, and that can only be bad."

"Excuse me," yelled the redhead to a passing stranger, seemingly oblivious to her own strange behaviour. "Do you know what that is?" She pointed out of the window with one hand at the building in question.

The stranger looked quite thoroughly baffled. "Eh? What did you say?"

Nina butted in, trying to appear more polite than her partner. "This…this building," she enunciated slowly in Japanese, pointing several times at the storefront. "This. What…is…this?"

The stranger looked puzzled for a moment, looking back between Nina and the object of her inquiry several times before nodding slowly. "Ah! AH-KE-I-DO," he pronounced very prominently, and then turned to leave.

"Thank you." Nina bowed politely, and then bashed her companion firmly across the back of the head with a fist. "Stupid!"

"Ah! Don't hurt me, Nina-chan!"

Nina rolled her eyes. "Stop acting like that all the time. And don't do that any more!" She prodded the redhead firmly in the chest with one finger. "You keep forgetting; we don't speak the same language they do."

"I won't forget," insisted Arika, hands on her head in an exaggerated expression of pain. "I'll remember! Nina-chan can do all the talking from now on!"

"Akeido?" Nina shook her head. "Ake-i-do… Aakeido. Arkeido?"

"Ar-ca-do," chirped Arika triumphantly.

"An arcade? That thing? It doesn't _look_ like any arcade I've ever seen."

Arika gave the dark-haired girl a very curious look, shaking her head. "That's because this is a different planet, remember? Granny always said, "when you go to a different place, everything is different." Right?"

Nina stared at her.

"Well…anyway… Are you buying those shoes or not?"

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The world was spinning out of control. Darkness hung all around, a sensation of falling endless lengths toward a fate unknown. A horrible sinking feeling welled up as the darkness grew ever deeper and more enveloping…

Mikoto woke with a start as the side of her head hit the floor. The impact reverberated through her skull, throwing off her equilibrium and making her whole body tingle.

"Ack!"

"Dummy…"

She sat up, perhaps a little more quickly than she should have as the motion made her head spin again. Instead of a witty retort, or something offensive, Mikoto stuck her tongue out at the woman sitting nearby and arranged her legs beneath her into a sitting posture.

"What're you doing here, anyway," she asked with obvious contempt, glaring at the darkly dressed figure. Natsuki gave her a matching glare right back.

"What about _you_," she countered, in a similar tone. "Why are _you_ still here?"

Mikoto blinked. "Because…because Mai's hurt and…" She frowned angrily at her would-be opponent and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't have to answer to you!"

"After all that, I thought you trusted me?"

The young girl looked up at her, her features softening as her expression ranged from frustration toward a more self-conscious kind of dissatisfaction. "Mai trusted you," she said after a while. "Mai trusts you…I guess I should too. But that doesn't mean that I like you!"

Natsuki turned her attention toward the window, avoiding eye contact, and leaned back nonchalantly into her seat. "I guess there's not much more I can do to win you over, is there? It's not like we can't just co-exist like this anyway." The youngster failed to reply, instead simply remaining on the floor by the bedside cross-legged with an elbow on one knee, chin resting on the heel of her palm. Silence stretched out between the two, longer and longer, and it soon became clear that the conversation was dead.

Despite her best efforts, Natsuki found her attention wandering back to the bed before too long, and the unconscious figure therein. The redhead's eyes were flickering behind their lids as she slept and her chest rose and fell rhythmically, deep sleep enshrouding her from the outside world.

It was strange, the way Mai looked while she was asleep. She lay on her back, as usual, with her hair pooled on the pillow underneath in a thick orange mess. Her fringe hung down over her face, obscuring most of her forehead and overshadowing her eyes. Her features relaxed in atypical fashion, a peaceful absence of any expression that was rarely seen on the otherwise expressive redhead. Every now and then, the corner of her mouth twitched upward slightly, as if something in her dream were most amusing. The bed she lay in was a plain, flat, uncomfortably stiff hospital bed, and Mai shifted regularly in her sleep, arching the small of her back up off the bed for several seconds at a time, which made the sheet slip millimetre by millimetre downward. Not that it really covered anything in the first place; the wafer-thin sheet of dull greyish blue fabric only seemed to cling tightly around the redhead's body, showing off a figure that was almost motherly by proportion. Her breasts formed a veritable mountain out of that thin sheet that wafted gradually up and down with her breathing, and anyone could tell that she was naked underneath with a quick glance to her chest.

Natsuki averted her gaze. It was bad enough when she was awake, but asleep…she'd be turning into a real pervert in no time, if this kept up.

It was Shizuru's fault, of course, her and all her innuendo. And Mai's constant double entendres.

She certainly had grown, though she had to admit. True to what everyone had said about her, Mai had only gotten…well…bigger. Yes, perhaps the muscles she had built up during her fleeting years at Garderobe weren't quite as obvious now as they had been, but they were still there.

That brought her up short. Natsuki put her chin to her hand again and sighed deeply, eyes closing. How in the world was she to explain this sudden…shared recollection? Shizuru would probably go mad hearing about it, what little she did actually remember at that point.

"At least she'll be happy," mumbled Natsuki to herself. "Even in a past lifetime, or whatever…" She shook her head. Kami, even thinking about it in passing made her brain hurt.

"I should have listened to you."

Natsuki blinked out of her reverie. "Hm?" Her attention rushed back to the semi-conscious girl draped against the side of Mai's bed, now turned to look up at her would-be guardian's face with an indecipherable expression.

"You were right," Mikoto elaborated, as if that made any more sense.

"Right about what?"

The youngster turned her head right round, in a manoeuvre Natsuki found slightly painful to watch, and regarded her with that same strange look on her face.

"When Mai's brother died," she said slowly. "And I _attacked _Mai… I was stupid. I should have listened to you then, because you remembered what I forgot." Mikoto nodded slowly, turning her head again so she could gaze lethargically up at the redhead's sleeping face. "I forgot what was most important."

"What was that?" There was a goodly sized pause, and for a moment Natsuki wondered if she had asked the wrong question. But then Mikoto finally answered,

"That Mai is the person I love the most."

Natsuki couldn't keep from smiling just a little at that. "I always said I was the most sensible of the three of us."

"No pants," retorted Mikoto.

"You'll never let me forget that, will you?"

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When Mai finally awoke again an hour or two later, there was much rejoicing, however quiet it was kept. Mikoto was all over her would-be guardian, clinging like her old carefree, childish self again and chirping the redhead's name now and then with a happy little catlike yip. Mai seemed cheerful enough herself as she fussed over the girl in return. Her eyes sparkled again as she played some silly game or other with her young charge, seemingly oblivious to the stifling hospital environment around her.

Natsuki watched, and waited, and found her patience stretching further and further the longer she stayed on the sidelines, observing the pair at work. There was something oddly calming about Mai, there always had been, and Mikoto seemed to have a talent for bringing it out to its fullest.

"So," giggled the redhead, attacking Mikoto's sides again with a quick jab of her fingers, to which the youngster laughed heartily back at her. "If you're so hungry, you big food-machine…where should we go to eat?"

Mikoto looked up with a confused expression, blinking. "Go?" She squinted when Mai tapped a fist lightly to her head.

"Silly! I haven't had much time for shopping lately, remember? So there's nothing much at home I can use to cook with. Unless you want ramen again." Mikoto nodded deliriously, and Mai frowned at her. "That's fine for you, but _I'd_ like something different for once if you don't mind."

Natsuki coughed.

"Hm?" Mai looked up at her with a hint of a smirk curling at the edge of her mouth. "Did you say something?"

"Well…" Natsuki sighed resignedly. "Look, I can make some arrangements, I can get you into some place nice for this afternoon. But you'll have to make do on your own for the rest of the day until then, okay?" Mikoto gave her an odd look, while Mai just smiled.

"Thanks."

Natsuki waved dismissively. "It's nothing. After everything I owe you…"

"No," Mai interrupted, shaking her head, "it's not. It's not nothing. You really don't have to, I mean…I wouldn't want to be imposing on you. I know you don't like people taking-"

"-you're really difficult when it comes to taking things from people, aren't you?"

Mai looked down at the ground all of a sudden, her face tightening slightly. "I just…like to be able to take care of things myself, that's all," she explained hesitantly. "I don't want to impose…"

"Kami's sake, Tokiha." Natsuki smiled and shook her head. "You really have changed, haven't you? Or maybe you haven't changed at all…"

A gurgling noise emanated from Mikoto's stomach, effectively shattering the moment. Mai chuckled, and Natsuki stood there still smiling despite herself, shaking her head. After a few moments, Mai managed to lever the youngster off her and shifted round to get out of the bed again and onto her own two feet.

"Well, I suppose we should get going if we're going to feed this monster." She patted Mikoto on the head affectionately with one hand as she swung her legs off the bed. "I wonder…where's the nearest ramen shop?"

"You might want to rethink that," Natsuki suggested, turning around quickly.

"Oh, don't you worry about those doctors. I don't care what they say, I know and you know that I'm perfectly-"

"It's not that I'm worried about." Natsuki gestured toward the redhead with one hand, still not making eye contact, avoiding even looking her way.

Mai looked down, and then laughed. Her cheeks warmed slightly.

"Well, yeah, I suppose some clothes might be nice!" The dark-haired woman was shaking her head as she moved away, walking over towards a small closet on one side of the room. "That wouldn't have been the best move, would it? I wonder if they could arrest me for something like that?"

She yelped when something large and cloth-like suddenly landed on her head, blinding her completely. The something in question turned out to be a dress, a light sundress in fact, yet modestly long in the skirt and high-necked in front. Mai couldn't hide a slight pout.

"This for me, hm?" She levelled a most displeasured look at Natsuki. "What happened to _my_ clothes?"

Natsuki remained impassively silent.

"Well," Mai continued dubiously, "you got my size right, why couldn't you get me something a little less…conservative?"

"Exhibitionist."

"And you didn't happen to get any underwear with that, did you?"

There was an awkward pause. Mai kept her pouting glare focused on the other woman's back as Mikoto fidgeted restlessly against her side.

"I didn't know your size," relented Natsuki at last, somewhat diffident.

"No pants."

"Shut up, you!"

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Dawn broke, as it usually did in summer, far too early in the morning. The sun peeked its way up over the horizon and promptly blinded the handful of overnight staff, and one or two nocturnal customers who had gathered in the upper lobby.

It was a nice lobby, though. All the way up on the topmost floor of the hotel, the elevator opened out on a wide and lavishly decorated room that barely fit into half the space of the main reception, but was still somehow comfortably spacious. The floor was a light grey, speckled marble in irregularly shaped slabs that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, with a large sunken area in the centre where stood a full-sized pool table and several small bar tables in dark, stained hardwood. Along one sidewall was a bar much different from the one downstairs, much smaller for one, and of the same marble panelling as the floor to make it look as if it had all been carved from one piece. The top was that same mahogany finish wood, smooth and polished to a lustrous shine. Opposite, a set of double doors led into the luxuriously decorated hallway that served access to the most expensive rooms, including the rooftop suite, and the last wall was all floor-to-ceiling windows with narrow metal frames, so as to obscure as little of the panoramic ocean view as possible.

Narrow black heels clicked across the marble floor in a steady rhythm, straight across one corner of the room towards the bar. One or two heads turned to spot a very smartly dressed and professional looking brunette woman in her early twenties, carrying with her a thick beige folder in the crook of one elbow, her other hand holding a slender silver mobile to the side of her head. Narrow, unadorned lips moved almost silently as she spoke into the device at her ear, so slightly and quickly that not a word could be made out. She seemed more than just a little engrossed in her conversation, and so failed to notice eyes following her.

She certainly wasn't the most striking of women, the bartender might have been thinking to himself. She was as tall as was the average Japanese woman and just as slender, her figure more plain rectangular than "curvy" as one might put it. Of course, the short brown jacket that hung down just above her waist did a good job of concealing her build, and that skirt definitely wasn't exposing much past her knees. Her attire was as straightforward and formal as the rest of her, overall building up quite the aura of professional businesswoman. Somehow, the haphazard mess that was her hair managed not to spoil the look, but only emphasised it even more.

She stopped at last right in front of the bar, where she stood for a few moments longer until finally finishing off whatever business she had and clicking the phone shut with a soft snap. She looked up to the bartender and smiled pleasantly, a smile that was as formal as her whole appearance.

"Excuse me," she began in a most decorous tone of voice. "Room thirteen; we were expecting a delivery…" The bartender sighed as if he had had to deal with this sort of thing early in the morning far too often, and turned to the rack of narrow metal drawers set into the back wall of the bar.

"Room thirteen…thirteen…"

"That's Suzushiro," prompted the brunette.

"Yeah, which one?"

Yukino tried her best not to let a self-conscious grin show. "It doesn't matter," she conceded, shaking her head slightly. "There should be an overseas package of some kind…"

"Got it," interrupted the man. He turned back and deposited on the counter a thick, puffed-up white envelope with several labels stamped all over it in about three different languages. Yukino slid the phone into her pocket and reached out to pluck the envelope up by one corner in a single fluid motion, obviously practiced.

"Thank you," she said in that soft voice of hers, and bowed her head. Before a reply could be made, she turned on her heel and strode across the room along the window, apparently unbothered by the glaring sunlight rushing in over the side of her face.

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Room 13 turned out to be the penthouse suite, built right into the roof of the hotel. There was even a set of French windows that led right onto the roof itself, where was built a traditional style Japanese rock garden. There were rows of flowerbeds, somewhat colourless at that moment what with it being the middle of summer, and a narrow paved path wound its disorganised way around a shallow pond, complete with one or two small fish.

Inside was another story altogether. The suite comprised only two rooms, both surprisingly cosy if very lavishly made up. The main room was a simple square, the usual television set up in one corner with furniture arranged to suit. There was a very modest kitchenette and a table over to one side that served as a dining area. The whole room was done in a calm, mellow pattern of soft yellows and reds with a few paintings hanging on the walls in strategic locations, as well as a huge gold-framed mirror.

The door to the bedroom was as decorative as the room itself, heavy wooden panel doors with gold-leaf handles and hinges, all the trimmings. The bedroom proper was definitively high-class. Thick, soft red carpet covered the whole floor from wall to wall, and a white ceiling helped to brighten the room up. The walls were the same red and yellow scheme as elsewhere, albeit much deeper, more powerful shades of the same colours, as if to emphasise the room itself. A full-length mirror stood in one corner, neglected for the time being it would seem. One wall was entirely taken up by folding doors, hiding a truly enormous walk-in wardrobe that even the most extravagant spenders might have trouble filling during a short stay. There were no real windows to speak of, besides several vertical slits along one wall filled in with almost opaque orange stained glass that barely let in any light at all. Of course, with the room lights off, it all made for a most stereotypically 'romantic' sort of atmosphere.

The bed was huge, as well it should be, and only as high as the depth of the mattress itself given that it was built into the floor. It was thankfully not in any strange shape, just a simple square slab that took up a considerable amount of floor space, adorned with sumptuous deep purple sheets and more than enough pillows to spare. Why purple, only the designer could know.

On the bed at that very moment was a single person, lying on her side, limbs sprawled out somewhat messily around her and her face pressed into the pillow under her head. Her mouth hung half-open and a soft humming noise emanated from the area of her chest as she breathed deep in sleep. Thick waves of long, soft mustard-yellow hair flowed out behind her to form a decent puddle on the bed, somehow having avoided being trapped beneath her. She lay atop the covers, obviously having not been bothered to go through all the trouble to get into bed properly, and her clothes were still half on. The shamelessly short beige skirt had slid up along those smooth, perfectly sculpted thighs until a flash of bright pink fabric could be seen beyond, and the thin jacket hung off one arm completely, her blouse unbuttoned down to her waist and hanging loosely open.

Yukino paused beside the bed and stared for a few minutes, as she sometimes did. It was probably a bad habit, but it was definitely one she could live with, and her wife certainly never complained about having her hovering nearby when she woke up every morning.

Without the makeup, however sparingly it was used, the blonde woman looked decidedly different. Her face looked plainer without it, admittedly, and less well defined. Her lips were narrow, her eyebrows fine and light, her cheeks slightly paler, though from head to toe she was clearly a shade or two darker than most local women; evidence of her love of sunbathing. Without the eye shadow, her face appeared not so sinister or devious, not that that was necessarily a bad thing.

Putting such distractive thoughts out of her head for the time being, Yukino turned her back to the bed and moved to deposit the thick folder she still carried on the table nearby, where also sat a brushed silver laptop computer, open and powered up, a strange collection of colours and shapes continuously morphing and reshaping on the screen. She sat herself down on a narrow red wooden chair and leaned back a little, to let her lower back relax for a while. Her left hand automatically rose to adjust her glasses while she sighed an overworked sort of sigh. The envelope kept creeping in on her field of vision, imposing itself upon her like some lurking evil.

"He said it was urgent," she thought aloud, not as if anyone was around to hear her talking to herself besides the obvious. "I wonder what it could be. He sounded…nervous, was it?"

Her nails, short-trimmed but sharp, made short work of the envelope and in no time at all, she was looking at a mysterious black lump about the size of a golf ball, ovoid in shape with a small hole at one end and no discernable markings. Interesting indeed it was, this "important delivery." On further inspection, the hole turned out to be a socket, and Yukino had to rummage through her personal drawer to find a plug that would match. The other end of the thin grey cord slotted into a similar port on the back of her computer with a soft 'click' and at once, a notice popped up on the screen.

She was just about to investigate further, when there came a loud snort from somewhere behind her and a rustling of fabric.

"Wuh…hm?"

"Haruka-chan…I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

The blonde waved one hand in a very loose gesture. "Doesn't matter," she mumbled. "Gotta be up soon anyway for that stupid auction. Don't mind me, I know you're probably busy with something as usual." And just like that, Haruka was wide awake and as energetic as ever.

Despite being warned off, Yukino found herself unable to resist the temptation to turn and watch…

Haruka first thing in the morning was, surprisingly, much like Haruka any other time of day. Her eyes were slightly unfocused at first and her voice had yet to find its usual forcefulness, but she was just as striking by appearance despite being rather disarrayed. Her hair, miraculously, was almost untouched, a feat that Yukino had yet to understand regardless of how long she had already had to do so. Without any sort of warning, the jacket was tossed carelessly over one shoulder to the floor, and then off came the blouse with little to no visible effort. Haruka stood on the far side of the bed, back to her partner, and the skirt simply fell down her legs without any sort of resistance. It was as if she had carefully adjusted her clothes before sleeping in order to make undressing quite so simple come morning.

The multitude of rapidly fading cuts and scrapes aside, Haruka's back was probably one of her best attributes. Mainly because, unlike certain other places, her back showed off just how much muscle she really had hidden under otherwise stereotypically feminine curves. Only when she was pushing them did her biceps stand out, but her shoulders were _always_ that way, and for some reason Yukino found it oddly attractive.

Sure, she had reasoned on more than one occasion, she could have a typical girl with a typical body. She could have gone for one of those "girl-next-door" types, couldn't she? Except that she _was_ the girl next door, and Haruka wasn't like any other woman she knew. Haruka was unique, a rarity, irreplaceably singular.

She was also walking about the room stark naked, yawning hugely and stretching up on her toes, back muscles flexing for all to see. Even first thing in the morning, her skin had that soft gleam to it, and when she finally turned to look over her shoulder, her eyes were every bit as sharp and alert as always. It took no more than a few blinks to get that sharp, devious gleam back into those deep lavender eyes, and Haruka was suddenly grinning a very mischievous grin as she advanced on her observing partner.

Yukino turned back to her work perhaps a little too quickly and set her fingers to flying over the keyboard as they were so practiced at doing. She tried to ignore the sound of bare feet shuffling over the thick red carpet. She tried not to notice the scent of her favourite perfume getting closer and closer with each passing second.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to be getting so worked up first thing in the morning, Haruka-chan," she tried to argue, but her voice came out less than confident. Truth be told, resistance wasn't quite the first thing on her mind. "Really now, you need more rest than that. I know you haven't been sleeping properly these past few da-"

The rest was cut off by a pair of warm, soft, luscious lips over her mouth, and she suddenly found her argument dissolving away as if it were nothing.

"Good morning," purred the blonde woman when she finally pulled back for breath. Her lips moved for a moment more, but whatever it was she had thought of was clearly not important enough to voice. Instead of going any further with her thoughts, she grabbed her now far more agreeable wife by those delicately slender shoulders and kissed her again, much more insistently.

When Yukino finally put a hand to the blonde woman's bare hip, she relented, standing up straight beside the brunette with a look of satisfaction on her face. "Now _that's_ better," she chuckled, and slid her wife's narrow glasses back up her nose.

Yukino whined. "I hate it when you do that, Haruka-chan, you _know_ that…"

"Only because you enjoy it so much." Haruka grinned almost impishly. "It's not my fault that you taste so good first thing on a morning, now is it? Though I have to admit, you're a little billed today."

"_Bitter_, Haruka-chan," Yukino corrected automatically, giving the blonde a displeased look that took more effort than she might let on. "And that would be the wine I had last night."

"Never did much like that Spanish stuff. You really need better taste in wines, my dear Yukino, or else I might just stop kissing you if you're going to taste like sour grapes all the time."

"Would you rather I taste like chillies," muttered Yukino sarcastically, turning back to her work. Those same hands caught the sides of her face in a soft yet firm grasp and turned her head for another, almost startlingly passionate kiss that lasted quite a while indeed. When they finally broke off, noses barely centimetres apart, a concerned expression found its way to the brunette's face.

"I didn't mean it, you know."

Haruka only shook her head. "I just…felt like it, that's all."

Yukino was struggling against her, though admittedly it wasn't that much of an effort. "Well if you feel like it for much longer, we're never going to make it to that auction and you'll never get to meet that…what was his name…"

She was cut off with yet another kiss, much shorter this time. "No," said Haruka quite firmly.

"But Haruka-chan," whined the brunette expertly.

"Don't you think that's going to work this time, damn it." Haruka let go of one side of Yukino's head only to give herself space to prod one finger gently against the brunette's chest. "We've both been going non-stop since that meeting in Yokohama and that was over a week ago. I haven't even seen you naked at all since Tuesday." She held up a cautionary finger. "And no, yesterday doesn't count! We didn't even do anything, and I was angry anyway, so I wouldn't have enjoyed it."

"Then…what?"

Haruka grinned at her, a predatory grin. "Then today you're not going to touch that computer of yours until I've satisfied myself, _fully_, and you've had at least two hours' real sleep. And to make sure you're properly tired first…" By way of an explanation, she started tracing that projected finger down along the brunette's chest, unhooking the buttons in her blouse as it went and sliding the material apart.

"You're insatiable, Haruka-chan," breathed Yukino in her best "schoolgirl" voice, which only made the glint in those lavender eyes even brighter.

"I don't hear you saying stop…"

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"How long are you going to stay there?"

Mikoto snorted a reply, and the feeling of hot air brushing her skin through the thin fabric of her dress made Mai giggle.

"Don't mind her," retorted Mai as she reached down to run her fingers into the young girl's hair. Mikoto made an irritated whine and shook her head. "Not that you ever do, of course. I guess you two aren't quite as bad as you used to be, hm?" A tap to her shoulder caught the redhead's attention, and she looked up to find a familiar silhouette standing over her, blocking out the sun.

"Here," offered the dark-haired woman, one hand out-stretched holding a brightly labelled can with a fine coating of condensation. "Before it gets warm."

Mai smiled and took the proffered drink, but didn't open it. Instead, the can sat on the grass beside her hip, and her palm rested atop it. "I remember," she began fondly. "I remember…Tate-kun…" She shook her head. "I guess I shouldn't be reminiscing at a time like this though, should I?"

"Yuichi," said Natsuki flatly as she sat down in the grass close by. "I remember there was some kind of… thing with you and him, wasn't there?"

Mai shook her head again, much more firmly. "I never really _liked_ him. The way he treated Shiho… Well I suppose that wasn't really his fault, though, was it?" She leaned back on the ground and put one hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun. "I really should have been a little more encouraging for her, I think. Him and her together… it works."

"Oh, you know all about relationships now, do you?"

Mai stuck out her tongue. "I know enough. I know there's a difference between what Shiho-chan wanted and what Tate thought. Stupid boy," she finished in a mutter.

"From my point of view, I'd say he saw Shiho as more of a companion than anything else. Like…"

"Like Chie-chan," interrupted Mai. Natsuki had to bite back a laugh at that and wisely said nothing. "She and Aoi-chan had this weird thing going, it was like they were a couple…except…it wasn't really like that, y'know?" She frowned. "Okay, I admit, I'm not the best at figuring out relationships."

"Like your brother."

"Huh?" Mai blinked. "Well…yeah, I guess you're right. He and Akira-kun…"

"Like you and me, eh?" Natsuki chuckled to herself. "Like…growing up and turning into old maids together, huh. At least I know I'll always have someone to complain to."

"Yeah…yeah," replied the redhead somewhat distantly. She bit her bottom lip, if only for a second. "Like…like you and me…I guess…"

Natsuki blinked and looked down at her. "Eh? What, did I say something? It isn't about your brother, is it?"

Mai shook her head. "Don't worry," she argued, showing a reassuring half-smile. "It's nothing, really." Then she slowly turned her head to bring the dark-haired woman beside her into view, and grinned. "You look kinda hot in that thing, Natsuki-chan. Why d'you where something like that on a day like this?"

Natsuki didn't blush, disappointingly, but she did give her a sour look. "You keep doing that." Mai giggled up at her. "And I told you, this is for riding. It's for safety. You get used to it after a while."

"Seems more like for style to me, hm? Oh, don't mind me, I'm not complaining or anything. In fact…it looks good on you."

Natsuki directed a single finger towards the redhead. "You stop that right now, I mean it. I didn't come here to help you practice flirting."

"Oh you're just no fun," whinged Mai, pouting. Mikoto peered up at her with a puzzled expression and blinked at her. Then, almost as one, they both started giggling again.

A gloved hand went to Natsuki's forehead with an exasperated sigh. "Honestly, you two are getting worse and worse every day." She leaned back against the thick trunk of a cherry tree and gazed idly up at the sunlight filtering down through the leaves above her. It had turned out an uncomfortably warm day indeed, between the general humidity hanging in the air and the blazing sun beating down on the city from above. Thankfully, here in the park the ocean breeze carried quite a way and set the still, clammy air to stirring. The leaves rustled in the trees to an unseen rhythm, and the sound of birdsong and cicadas drowned out the far distant traffic.

Mai had indeed worn the dress so thoughtfully supplied her, and it fit just as well as expected, covering all from her collar to her knees, sleeveless arms bare and slightly pale in the bright daylight. By now, being out in the open and all away from the stifling atmosphere inside the hospital, her expression and overall demeanour had taken an encouraging turn back towards their normal, indomitably exuberant state. That odd little feline grin had snuck its way back onto her face when she wasn't looking, and now it resurfaced whenever she relaxed. With an echo of that same look on Mikoto's face, the two made a perfect pair, though it was an odd pair indeed.

The young girl herself was dressed in her usual thrown-together sort of outfit, a plain old short black skirt and a brightly coloured t-shirt to cover her top half, and was currently curled up in a foetal position, head resting on Mai's stomach. The redhead seemed not to mind, as ever, besides the occasional shuffling and batting at Mikoto's head whenever the youngster moved about too much.

All of a sudden, Mai blinked, her cheeks colouring slightly. "Eh?" She looked back down again and found a finger prodding her chest.

"Squish squish," giggled Mikoto. Mai swatted at her hand.

"Stop it, Mikoto!"

She didn't. She kept doing it, even more so if anything. "Squish!" This time, her finger sank quite a way, the soft flesh beneath Mai's dress pillowing impressively. The redhead squeaked, cheeks warming rapidly.

"Ah… Mikoto!"

"Squish, squish, squish!" Mikoto, finger hovered over a conspicuous protrusion centred atop one of those prominent mounds and then stabbed firmly downward with a gleeful giggle. "Squish!"

Mai let out something between a moan and a gasp. "Mikoto!" She batted helplessly at the young girl's hand, squirming furiously.

"Should have worn a bra."

"Then why couldn't you get me one?"

Natsuki frowned at her. "Hey, I didn't _have_ to go and fetch that dress for you. And it's not like I could get into your apartment or anything anyway, is it? Feel lucky they let me get your panties back for you."

"That must have looked a little suspicious though," chuckled the redhead while fending off the finger attacks with one hand. "Stealing a poor helpless, injured girl's panties like some pervert."

"I take it back," groaned Natsuki. "Shizuru has _nothing_ on you. You're appalling."

"You only say that because you care," Mai teased with a grin. Then Mikoto found her target again and the redhead squeaked in distress.

"Yeah, serves you right," chuckled Natsuki. "That's what you get for flirting with me. Now no more, or I'll teach her to do that to strangers too."

"You wouldn't!" Mai blinked when Natsuki's fist landed gently atop her head.

"Of course I wouldn't, stupid, you know that. I bet _you_ might, though."

For a moment, Mai stared up at the dark-haired woman with a fond expression, that funny little cat-like grin curling her lips. "You really have changed," she stated in amusement. "I guess I did something right all those years, eh? You were so uptight and boring when we first met…"

Natsuki groaned and put a hand to her forehead.

"What?"

"Please, I'd rather avoid talking about…y'know…all that." She shook her head. "It's just really starting to hurt my head thinking about it."

Mai giggled. "I know what you mean! I suddenly remember all this stuff, and now it's like…" She sighed irritably. "It's like the life I've had up to now isn't…_real_ any more, you know? It's like seeing the real thing and comparing it to what you've got, and when you look you can tell that the thing you had was a fake all along."

Natsuki stayed her tongue while words flew about her head, trying to organise themselves into lucidity.

"I think," continued Mai regardless, "I think the worst of it is…instead of remembering my real life, now I've got _two_ sets of memories, and they both seem so real. I don't know which is fake. I don't know how, but I get the feeling they're _both_ the truth, and that's just impossible." She shook her head again. "To be perfectly honest, it's a little scary."

"You're a lot more philosophical now, that's for sure." That brought out a self-conscious giggle from the redhead. Natsuki rolled right onto her side and tucked her legs up below her. "You should listen to yourself, Tokiha. Back when we first met you were just an ordinary, despicably nice girl…and now you're over-analysing your own life away. It's not like you at all."

Mai smiled a slow, resigned smile. "I guess I just grew up, is all."

There was another moment of silence as the shadow of a cloud drifted over the threesome. A fleeting chill wind rustled through the nearby trees and wafted through the grass all around them. Mai felt her skin prickling to the touch of that suddenly cold breeze, as it had the same way long before…

She turned her head to one side, away from the figure draped beside her and away from those watchful eyes hanging over her. A prickling sensation stung at the corner of her eye, and her vision blurred as she blinked several times. Her lips curled into a mild grimace for just a second or two before she had it all under control again.

"I'm sorry," she ventured at last, in a somewhat unsteady tone of voice.

"Hm?" Natsuki shifted her weight to one elbow, half sitting up beside her, the break in the redhead's voice setting her off. "What? Is there something wrong?"

Mai shook her head, slowly but definitely. "I just…I wanted to apologise," she continued, her voice much more confident after a moment's pause for breath. "I want to apologise for not telling you the truth." She turned her head to the other girl and their eyes met.

"What do you mean?" There was an odd look in Mai's eyes that Natsuki didn't at first recognise.

Something tugged at Mai's blouse, and she looked down to see a drowsy-faced Mikoto blinking up at her. "Hungry," groaned the young girl softly. She smiled and reached down to run her fingers through Mikoto's hair.

"Never mind," she excused absently. "I'll tell you some other time. Right now, I think it's time we go get some food, hm?"

Natsuki shook her head ever so slightly and frowned to herself. "I think I saw some guy selling rice balls down near the lake, how about that?"

"In this heat?" Mai flashed a mischievous, almost feline smirk. "Hope you like them sticky."

"You're intolerable, Tokiha," the dark-haired woman protested in a sarcastic tone of voice.

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In the end, it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny afternoon, if also atrociously hot.

Nina stood once again back on that narrow hotel balcony just outside their shared room, elbows resting on the railing as she gazed idly out across the vast expanse of green between there and the oceanfront. Her head cocked to one side, one cheek rested atop her folded forearms. The afternoon sun was hot against the side of her face, and the black metal rail beneath was warm through her skin. A gentle ocean breeze rustled through her hair, now loosed from the usual ponytails and hanging in a thick shroud about her head. The sound of the door opening behind her, failed to grab her attention.

"Nina-chan," called a boisterous voice into the empty hotel room. "Nina? Where are you?"

Nina kept right on not hearing it. She shifted with a sigh over to the other side, cocking her head back again and leaning her other ear on her arm instead. Her hair stayed where it had been as she moved her head, coming to rest in a thick curtain that obscured most of her face and blocked out much of the light from the sun. Her feet shifted restlessly below, swapping places again for the nth time in the past few hours.

"Ni-na," whispered a voice directly behind her. A finger brushed against the skin of her left shoulder, drawing a quick arc across her pale flesh.

Nina bit back a moan. Her face was hot as she span round to face that most annoying creature behind her with a very displeased expression, scowling darkly. "A-RI-" She trailed off…

"Ni-na," chirped the redhead, grinning at her almost stupidly. "Hurry and get dressed!"

Arika was wearing a dress, wonder of wonders. More to the point, she was wearing _that_ particular dress, the dress that she had insisted on buying earlier that day, which had cost quite a large portion of their already meagre financial reserves. Long, flowing thin sheets of pale turquoise and a deep aquamarine, criss-crossing back and forth over one another like a braid, ends tied neatly into a small knot at the base of the redhead's neck and then descending over her chest in two parallel plaits. The material fanned out as it fell, spreading out across her hips and overlapping over her lower abdomen, melting into a loose skirt made up of many alternating strips of blue and white that fell all the way to her ankles, ends barely brushing the floor. The way the skirt billowed when she moved, it was as if the whole garment really was held together merely by the knotting. Thankfully, it did cover everything, but the gap in the front dipped almost dangerously low and Nina could only imagine that the back would be just as risqué.

With her hair let loose and a lightest hint of make-up, however, mistaking her for royalty suddenly didn't seem so impossible.

"That…" Nina shook her head slowly. "You look…nice."

Arika grinned back at her, denting the illusion to some degree. "I bet you'll look even better once you're dressed." She took the other girl by her hand and almost dragged her back inside with a giggle. "Come on, let's find that dress you picked and we'll get ready, okay?"

"Wait…ready for what?"

There was a moment's pause, and an awkward atmosphere descended.

Nina frowned. Arika gave her a pleading expression in return. Nina only stiffened her features. Arika pouted a reply.

"No."

"There's a-" Arika blinked. "Nina," whined the redhead. "At least let me explain!"

"Whatever it is, knowing you I'm sure it's a bad idea." Nina crossed her arms over her chest resolvedly and turned her head to one side. No amount of that irritating whining or pleading or subversion would work on her this time.

Surprisingly, none came. Instead, the young redhead leaned in against her partner, arms curled loosely around Nina's middle, and rested her head against the dark-haired girl's shoulder.

"There's a ballroom downstairs," she explained slowly, sounding most dejected indeed. "They're having some big event or something tonight, there's a party and everything, and everyone'll be dancing. I was just thinking…y'know…we could go together? Have some fun, maybe?"

Nina felt her resolve melting like ice on a hot day, despite her own mental forehead being banged against a wall. Stupid. Her hands automatically went to rest on the redhead's shoulders as she shifted back a little way, to gently lever the face from her shoulder. Her gaze caught her companion's for a second, and held.

"If…" She bit her tongue. Who had gone and planted all these mad thoughts in her head? A short year or two ago there wouldn't have even been an argument, but now she was actually giving in so easily. Arika was clearly a force to be reckoned with, not just for her sheer power. "If it's what you really want," Nina tried not to say, "I'd be happy to go with you."

Arika smiled beautifully, and for a very short while there was an awkward, yet agreeable silence.

"Oh!" Arika flashed a playful grin as she turned about-face, peeking back over one shoulder at her companion. "Guess who I saw down in the lobby just now! You'll never believe it…"

"Stupid," muttered Nina. "I bet you're going to make up some crazy story like-"

"-Armitage!"

Nina sighed. "I knew it."

A distinct look of frustration crossed the redhead's face, hands on her hips as she rounded on the other girl. "It's true! Brigadier General Armitage, in this very hotel!"

"You are unfortunately quite correct, Yumemiya-san."

Both girls turned with a start to the still open balcony window. The gentle ocean breeze wafted the curtains back and forth in a slow drift, and standing silhouetted in the doorway against the blinding mid-afternoon sun outside was that familiar cloaked figure.

"Miyu!" Arika almost squeaked with joy. The blue-haired woman, for her part, showed little emotion at all, though she responded with a very slight smile.

"What do you mean," interrupted Nina, just as the whole scene was about to turn nostalgic on her. "If she's here, then the president of Aires is here. What would they be doing in a place like this?"

Miyu held one hand up in a silencing gesture, shaking her head only very slightly. "I am afraid the situation around you is considerably more complicated than you might at first assume. Perhaps it would be best if I appraise you both more concisely."

Arika blinked, and Nina sighed once again and gestured to the bed. When the older woman failed to take the hint, she instead half dragged her red haired companion alongside her and the two sat side by side on the edge of the bed, Miyu now standing some way apart in front of them. The door was thankfully slid shut, locking out the hot summer air, and the curtain drawn in a slightly conspicuous manner. Arika, for one, showed no apparent sign of noticing anything sinister. Instead, the redhead leaned into her roommate once more, causing not a slight colouring to Nina's face.

"So?"

Miyu nodded almost imperceptibly, to no one in particular it would seem. "The person you saw earlier was not, in fact, who you think it was. Her name is Suzushiro Haruka, and having seen her puts you both at considerable risk."

"I thought we were _already_ at considerable risk," retorted Nina. Miyu showed no obvious reaction, as ever.

"Suzushiro Haruka is the owner and director of a well established financial firm with significant influence in the local Japanese economical region. She is also what you might call a somewhat distorted reflection of the same Brigadier General you are both familiar with."

Arika blinked again. "Is this about that whole "alternate dimensions" thing?"

"Correct," replied Miyu abruptly. "In an alternate world, there can also exist an alternate version of any given person. Suzushiro Haruka is much similar to the Armitage you know, and at the same time she is also very different." She hesitated, a very odd expression crossing her face for a brief second or two.

Nina frowned. "What is it?"

"I am afraid you will eventually be forced to interact with her personally, if the current situation does not improve drastically. Also, she is not the only "reflection" with which you will no doubt come into contact, given time. Many particular persons you recognise prominently from your own world have alternates in this world, some of them what one may call "disagreeable" or perhaps, even hostile."

"Okay…and just how are we supposed to deal with something like this? It seems I can't use my nano-machines at all for the time being, and to be brutally honest, Arinko doesn't exactly instil the highest confidence with her _current_ fighting abilities."

"Hey!" Arika jabbed a finger rudely into Nina's hip, eliciting a yelp of pain and an angry scowl in retaliation.

"However," interrupted the cloaked woman, still showing no outward emotion. "Your presence here, however necessary, has caused the situation to become much more complicated. The mere action of your crossing the boundary between this world and your own has caused considerable leakage between dimensions."

"What do you mean by leakage?"

Miyu caught the redhead's eye. "Caution would be advisable from now on."

"What do you mean," insisted Nina, "by leakage?"

Miyu failed to answer, simply matching Nina's gaze with an expressionless stare. Then, as suddenly as she had arrived, she span dramatically on one foot, the billowing cloak mingling with the fluttering mass of the curtain until her figure was completely obscured. When the movement eventually died down…she was gone.

"How does she _do_ that?"

Nina sighed. "Right now, I'd be more concerned with the why."

"Why?" Arika cocked her head to one side, a puzzled expression growing quickly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean her motivation," explained the dark-haired girl patiently. "Why is she doing all these things? Why did she tell us to stay here? Why _here_, specifically? Why did she even bring us here in the first place?"

Arika remained silent, concern flashing behind her eyes as she looked down towards the floor.

"And most of all…why won't she tell us?"

"Maybe she can't," offered the redhead. "Maybe there's a good reason she can't answer all these questions, Nina. Maybe…"

"…maybe she doesn't trust us."


	7. Chapter 7 : A Rude Awakening

How the creature had known there was a dormant electrical generator buried deep within the endless labyrinth of corridors beneath an old, run down industrial building, no one could say for certain. What was certain was that it had specifically sought out the very central point of the lowest level of the building, and found precisely that for which it had apparently been searching. For an unintelligent monstrosity, such behaviour might have been alarming, had anyone really noticed.

The darkness was absolute, but the creature had no use for light anyway. It saw in infrared and ultrasound, painting a perfect image of the ragged, unkempt surfaces framing the narrow corridor through which it moved, like some silent, malevolent shadow. Its many invisible pseudopodia felt their way along in front of it, just in case anything did manage to bypass its inscrutable vision.

There, at last, was the softly glowing entity that had drawn it to this place, humming low and strong like a beacon for miles around. The creature reached out its limbs to touch the device and felt a tingle of force; a neat, uniform field like a thick globular shell that ran around the entire machine. For something so clearly unnatural, it was beautifully constructed. The outermost skin tore open like paper under the razor-sharp touch of each tendril, falling away like the skin from an onion until the thing itself was visible.

The creature felt a strange satisfaction, finally faced with this most magnificent construction, and triumphantly manipulated its own shell to overlap into the machine. At once, rhythmic pulses of energy washed over its skin, mingling into its shell and filling it with a renewed sense of invigorating power. Its limbs extended with the feeling, growing longer and stronger, and ever keener. Its vision swelled out until it could "see" every inch of the building in which it stood.

Soft things. Two of them. Moving, like living things.

The creature felt anger and irritation warring within. It quelled both and instead secured itself to the energy-giving machine from which it fed, extending its unseen limbs out and folding them flat till they covered almost every last inch of the floor of the room. More crawled up along the ceiling, ends hanging down in waiting. It hummed through every one of them, and then even the tiniest speck of dust could no longer escape its perfect sight.

Mikoto barrelled headlong down the corridor, light or no, and cleaved the thick metal door in two with one mighty slash. In retrospect, not the best move. One chunk of metal flew into the room and was immediately reduced to powder by forces unseen.

Mai grabbed the youngster by her collar and yanked her back, and just in time. A rush of air swept past across the corridor and ploughed into the opposing wall, shattering the concrete surface and leaving an impressive dent behind. A second indentation quickly formed with another deafening crack, and then almost a dozen more in rapid succession.

"Okay," uttered the redhead after a respectable pause, "I think it's over…whatever it was. Just don't do that again, alright?" She thumped one fist lightly down atop Mikoto's head, smiling reassuringly, or so she hoped. "You really should be a little more careful, Mikoto. You're always rushing into things."

"I could say the same for you."

Mai looked up with a grin at the source of the voice. "I was wondering when you'd get here. What, didn't think I could handle it myself?"

Walking towards them down the corridor, silhouetted in the dim light leaking through narrow high-set windows, was a tall, dark and quite mysterious feminine figure, clad in the tightest clinging body-length suit of dark shades of leather. In the gloom, her hair was a pitch-black sheet, which swept down behind her in a thick, uneven mass, trailing off into a few jagged edges that brushed the base of her spine. She stepped into the narrow circle of light cast by Mai's personal phosphorescence, a soft 'thunk' from the thick, padded grey boots of her suit on the hard concrete floor. The soft orange-yellow light cast a sharp reflection across that gloss surface, highlighting its wearer's figure.

"I worry," replied Natsuki calmly, if just as tedious as ever, pointing to the redhead implicatively with one thick grey-padded finger. She brought that hand back to her face and tucked the long strip of hair hanging down against her left cheek back behind her ear. Mai noticed she'd been doing that lately… "I just need to be sure the job gets done properly, especially something as important as this."

"Well unless you've got a better idea than running in and getting pureed, I don't think two heads would be much better than one." Mai blinked when something poked her chest with a disgruntled huff. She smiled down at the young girl and put a hand on Mikoto's head. "Sorry…two and a half heads."

Natsuki gave a dismissive grunt and closed her eyes. Out stretched one hand, and in it appeared with a pop and a flash, that familiar cylindrical form. The handle fit her grip so neatly, as always.

Mai flashed a feline grin.

Natsuki pointedly ignored her, attention instead focused on the open doorway. "I'll see if I can distract it, then just…do whatever it is you two do." She levelled the gun at the empty room. The trigger squeezed tight with a soft hum and a sharp electric-blue glow gathered about the muzzle of the thing like dancing flame.

"Close your eyes."

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Nina woke with a gasp.

Her chest was heaving and her heart was pounding behind her ribs like an angry bull in a cage. Sitting up so suddenly drained the blood from her head and made her feel faint, but it passed, thankfully, without much trouble.

It was hot, uncomfortably so. She was naked and soaking, and for a few seconds, she couldn't think why.

She peeled off the sheet and half slid half fell out of bed, her head still buzzing from her sudden waking and her heart still hammering away. She paused and took a few deep, slow breaths to calm herself down, though it didn't seem to help much. Whatever that dream had been, it had certainly gotten to her in a bad way…if only she could remember it.

There came a soft groaning noise from behind her, "Ni…Ni-na…" Nina turned to face the source and promptly wished she hadn't.

Arika looked, for want of a better word, trashed; her hair was a mess, ruffled, tangled and matted with sweat, and her face showed some considerable sign of fatigue. At first glance, she looked like she hadn't slept much at all the previous night. From the way that her face was flushed and her skin was just as slick as was Nina's, anyone might think the redhead had just run a marathon. Her eyes were dark and narrowed as she looked up at her companion with a muffled grunt. "Uh…Nina?"

Nina blinked.

It was maddening, that strange feeling burning inside her. The way Arika's hair looked so tousled and rough, and the oddly contented expression on her tired face, the way the redhead narrowed those big blue eyes up at her without a word. Alluring might have been a good word for it, but there was some raw component to it that made her head spin, that made her whole body tingle. It was like…anticipation…Arika's naked, nubile young body sprawled out on the bed, barely half-covered by that thin sheet, her bare chest slowly rising and falling with her deep, husky breathing. Her skin glistened with the last sheen of whatever amount of moisture had gathered during the previous night's activities, drawing attention to every little detail, every contour of that taut young female body, until Nina had to avert her gaze. She felt an overwhelming urge to throw that sheet away and…

Nina did a quick about-face, avoiding eye contact at all costs. She opened her mouth to say something, to make some kind of logical connection, some perfectly reasonable explanation to what was turning out to be a rather uncomfortable situation, but nothing came. Who was she kidding? They were alone, in a hotel room, both soaked and sticky with sweat from head to toe, naked, and completely exhausted. There was only one real answer.

"I remember we went out again last night," Nina began, very hesitantly. She didn't dare turn around, partly to hide her own highly flustered state, but mostly because she had a creeping feeling that nothing good would come of it. "You insisted we go to that…arcade again. And then we spent hours there, losing most of the money we had left, and then you said we should go out for dinner." She paused, racking her brains for whatever came next.

A hand on her shoulder jarred her from her thoughts. "Ni-na…" A wisp of hot breath against her left ear made her shiver.

Fingers down her spine.

Nina let out a low moan at the feather-light touch to her back. She moaned again, rather louder and more urgent, when she felt sharp teeth nipping into the lobe of her left ear.

"A…Arika," stuttered the dark-haired girl, but reasoning seemed futile. She could already feel smooth, slick skin against her shoulder blades, almost scalding to the touch. Strong, slender arms entwined about her like a cat snatching a mouse. Arika smoothed her hands flat and ran her palms across the other girl's stomach in indiscernible patterns, her fingernails scraping lightly over the skin. Muscles tightened under her touch; Nina shivered.

"Don't," insisted the redhead quietly as her roommate opened her mouth to speak. "Please…don't make me say it again. I already told you, it wasn't your fault."

"But…"

"_I forgive you_," interrupted Arika. "Now please, can you just let it go? Or do I have to persuade you…" Her tone wandered toward the husky side again as her hands moved swiftly upward.

Nina couldn't stop a hiss when the redhead got finger and thumb about her left nipple and squeezed down gently.

"Ni-na," purred the redheaded girl, nibbling at her partner's ear again. "I meant what I said…when I said that I love you…"

"But I…Erstin…" Nina yelped as the squeeze became a pinch.

"Erstin wanted us to be friends. I don't think that's enough any more…"

"That's no excuse…" Nina gasped. "That's no excuse…for listening to…Nao-sama's advice…"

Arika pulled back in surprise. "How…how did you know that?"

"Who else would be encouraging such activities if not her?"

Arika smirked devilishly. "You're not complaining, are you…Ni-na-chan?" Then she ran a fingertip down the ridge of Nina's spine once again.

Nina moaned in reply.

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The sun was high in the sky above the city, beating down on all those below. Ragged patches of thick, white cloud drifted here and there, throwing shifting shadows over the buildings and people on the ground. A cool wind swept up from the ocean and across the whole city, churning into strange patterns between the buildings and rustling leaves on trees. The usual Tokyo city traffic was already thick in the city centre, huge crowds of people rushing in all directions.

The Jogousaki apartment building looked just as drab and forlorn as it always did, even in the bright summer daylight. Most of the occupants therein had long since disappeared, to their various occupations, and the windows across the front face of the building were blinded out and dark. All except one, up on the third floor, that still hung open a fair way, through which were regularly seen a veritable menagerie of neighbourhood cats coming and going at all hours of the day. Luckily, the front wall was a sheer face, with nothing in the way of handholds except the extremely precarious drainage pipes that barely held more than the average feline's weight.

"Mikoto-chan, what are you staring at?"

Mikoto turned around, still pouting. "Keys," she mumbled, pointing one finger up at the open window.

"Hm?" Mai blinked. "You don't mean…" She jammed her hands in her pockets.

"_Please_ tell me you have your key, right?"

Mikoto sighed exasperatedly, and then dashed away. A brief attempt to stop her was met with complete ignorance, and the young girl was soon scaling her way up the side of the building by her bare hands and feet alone, using only the drainpipe and the concrete facing for grip.

"You're hopeless. The both of you." Natsuki set her helmet back down on the back of the bike and leaned against it with one elbow, dark hair shimmering a deep navy blue in the midday sun. "I don't know why I put all this effort into helping you out."

"Because you're such a lovely person," replied the redhead, sticking her tongue out at her impudently. "Besides…you know you enjoy all this just as much as the rest of us."

Natsuki snorted derisively.

"Oh you say that now, but let's see what happens when I'm not here any more!" Mai turned on her with an offended expression, waving one finger like some angry old grandmother. "What if I suddenly have to go help Takumi and you two are stuck here without me for days? I bet between the two of you, you'd never survive."

"Oh you do, do you?"

Mai crossed her arms and nodded, sticking her nose out in mock arrogance. "For starters, who'd cook?"

"Hey, look who's talking. It's not like I actually live with you or anything, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Mai grinned, cat-like in all, and put her hands together aside her face. "I forgot. You have your girl-friend," she teased, drawing out the word.

Natsuki rolled her eyes. "I thought you'd have grown out of that by now…"

Mikoto came dashing back down the stairway with an excitable look on her face, grinning from ear to ear and dancing about on her toes. She stood right up to Mai like an expectant puppy. The redhead laughed again and gave her a pat on the head with one hand.

"Okay okay, point taken. Let's get inside and get you fed, hey?" Mikoto nodded enthusiastically at the idea and turned about to go back upstairs.

"Well then…" Natsuki zipped her suit back up to the collar, hiding the pale blue of her blouse again. "If there's nothing more you need, I'm leaving. Some of us have real jobs, after all."

Mai paused, mid-step. The youngster clutching her sleeve let out a startled noise and turned back to loop up at her again, frustration showing, but Mikoto got only an eyeful of the back of the older woman's head as Mai turned slowly on the spot.

"Actually," she began, and then hesitated again. Natsuki looked back at her with a puzzled frown. "Actually…there's this nice cheap little Italian restaurant I know of nearby, I was wondering…"

Natsuki narrowed her eyes almost unnoticeably at her and frowned a little more.

The redhead turned and gently urged Mikoto's hand off her cuff. "Mikoto-chan…why don't you go and wait inside, okay? I promise I won't be long. I just need to talk…" she trailed off. "I'll make you dinner when I get back, alright?"

Mikoto pouted at her, loudly.

"I'll make you teriyaki again, how about that?"

With that, the youngster started nodding again, grinning hugely. "Mai, come back soon!" She tossed her arms around Mai's waist for a moment and then turned to scurry back up the stairs again and out of sight.

"So-"

Natsuki held up a silencing hand. "Just get on. You can explain when we get there." She paused. "And you can pay, too."

Mai pouted almost as badly as her young charge but moments ago and reluctantly slid into place on the back of the bike seat. "Fine. I guess I deserve that."

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"I bet you're used to this kind of expensive stuff, eh?"

Natsuki shook her head. "What?" She frowned at the giggle that got.

"You seem a little spaced out lately, Kuga. Something on your mind?" Mai grinned suggestively as she stirred her coffee with one of those useless little plastic sticks. "Or maybe some_one_?"

"What are we here for," sighed the dark-haired woman impatiently. Now it was Mai's turn to frown and lean her cheek against the heel of her palm, gazing across the table.

"Still straight to business. You haven't changed there, at least." She looked down at what remained of her coffee, still stirring lethargically. What had started as a brief pause stretched out quite uncomfortably. "I wanted to talk to you," Mai ventured at last, "that's all. Just a few things I think we need to go over, especially since…well…everything we remember now."

Natsuki failed to conceal a hint of discontent on her face. "I thought we'd discussed everything that needed discussing already? Isn't that what we've been doing the past month or so?"

"Have you forgotten how close I am to you already, Kuga?" Mai smiled a little self-consciously. "I'm no stranger, y'know. I know you better than you seem to think. Have you forgotten how long I've known you?"

"_Knew_," corrected Natsuki firmly, a bitter tint to her voice. "You _knew_ me, once, and that's a long time ago."

Mai frowned again, darkly. "You're not that old, Natsuki. And you haven't changed much since I left." Her hand edged out across the table. "Don't make me a stranger now, please, I don't want…"

"You want it like it was, that's the problem." Natsuki turned her attention pointedly elsewhere. "You're afraid of things changing, well people do change Tokiha. Especially after five _fucking_ years-" she stopped as her voice began to falter.

"That's…" Mai hesitated. "That's part of what I wanted to talk about, actually."

"I _knew_ it!" Natsuki glared at her angrily. "I just _knew_ all that crap about this "childhood friend" of yours was a lie. Bitch."

Mai flinched. "Kuga…" An accusing finger cut her off.

"Don't start. You lied, Mai; you lied right to my face and you expected me to believe it? You thought I couldn't tell? You just expected me to remember the parts that were convenient for you, selfish…" Natsuki bit back the sudden insults rising to her lips. She sat back into her seat again and took several slow breaths to calm herself. There was a considerably lengthy pause before Mai spoke up again.

"I know I left in a hurry back then, I know it was a stupid thing to do… I know I don't really have any excuse for something like that, either."

"You're an idiot, Tokiha, and you always will be. Do you have any idea how many people you had looking up to you? So many people had expectations for you, the principal said you were _special_, you'd be _going_ somewhere. Represent the academy, do something good for the whole damn _world_." Natsuki refused to look her in the eye, but she did throw a malicious glare her way. "It's the duty of an Otome…you just threw it all away and you never even said anything. Why?"

Mai bit her bottom lip. "I…didn't want it," she said, almost a whisper.

"What?"

"I didn't _want_ it! I didn't _want_ all that shit, I just…all I wanted…" She sighed and hung her head. "No…of course, it's more complicated than that. Would it be too much to ask that we just leave it there for now? I promise, I'll explain it all some day."

Natsuki shook her head. "I may hate you sometimes, Tokiha, but you should know by now that I at least trust you to keep your word. Whenever you feel like sharing…"

Mai nodded back at her. Then a sudden smile broke out across her face. "Enough of me…I wanted to talk about you, actually. I'm a little bit…well…concerned."

"There's nothing to be concerned about really," came the abrupt reply.

"And that's exactly what bothers me, see? You're being too confrontational." Mai took another sip of her coffee, peering over the rim at her counterpart. "It's not like you, not like you at all."

"That's just the way I am. You wouldn't know."

"Please…Natsuki…don't _push_ so hard," implored the redhead. "It's not good for you to be like this. I thought you'd be more open with yourself by now, but you're going further and further back to your old self."

"And what's wrong with my old self," Natsuki interrupted, turning an angry glare on her companion. "What's wrong with acting the way I feel? I shouldn't have to explain myself to you, of all people. Why are you trying to make me act like someone else?"

Mai waved both hands in a frantic gesture of apology. "I'm not! Really, Kuga, I was just trying to say that you should-"

"-Stop trying to _control_ me!" She was yelling, and that was a bad sign. "What's wrong with the way I am?"

She frowned hard when all she got back was a silent, indignant expression. Eventually the dark-haired woman settled back into her seat and turned her gaze away, a little awkward with all the strange eyes on her after her outburst.

"Is that it," questioned Mai after a lengthy pause. "Is that what's wrong? Is _she_ doing this to you?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business," replied Natsuki, feigning disinterest.

"Of _course_ it's my business, I care about you! I'm worried when you're acting like this. If there's a problem…" Mai shook her head again. "I'm sorry. You're right; it's none of my business. I should just let you handle your personal affairs on your own." She went back to sipping her coffee in silence, and watching the patterns in the bubbles.

The tension that had slowly built faded, little by little, away into the background. The sounds of people talking about the restaurant and the outside noises muffled through the windows took up the gap where their conversation had been. The sun drifted across the sky a little more; the minutes ticked away. Eventually, the coffee turned cold.

"Hey…"

Mai looked up with a questioning "hm?"

"I…" Their eyes avoided one another yet again; Natsuki's found their way down to the table. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, okay?"

"I deserve it. I shouldn't have been so pushy anyway," reasoned the redhead, smiling quite jovially even after everything that had happened. "I know you're not one to be so forthcoming about…stuff like that."

Natsuki sighed, or it might have been more a groan, and leaned her forehead into the heel of her palm. "You're right," she relented. "You were right anyway. It… it's not really Shizuru's fault. She's just got me in a bad mood lately and I don't know why; I mean it's not like she's done anything in particular…" She paused, and looked up.

Mai was watching rather intently, and listening just as well by the look of it.

"She's just…acting a little strange lately," the dark-haired woman continued. "I guess so am I, to be honest. She doesn't remember…anything…about the Carnival or Garderobe... I tried explaining and it really doesn't seem to be working at all. It doesn't help that _my_ memories aren't exactly in perfect working order."

"I think out of all of us, Mikoto's the only one who knows everything." Mai flashed a self-depreciating grin. "Lot of good that does us." Natsuki gave no response.

The silence was uncomfortable, again. Mai finished off the last of her coffee and argued with a waitress over their bill for a few minutes.

"I love her," said Natsuki all of a sudden, throwing the redhead off completely.

"Eh?"

"I…" She looked down at the table again, clearly uncomfortable. "I love her, honestly. It's not as if I don't care any more. She's just being awkward…it's just not right being round her lately." Natsuki shook her head with a regretful sigh. "Maybe it's _my_ fault. Maybe I did something…"

Mai almost startled her with a hand on her arm, leaning across the table. "If she's got a problem with _you_, then she's the one with the problem. There's not a thing wrong with you. That you can just come out and admit how you feel about her says at least that you're confident about your own feelings."

Natsuki almost glared back at her, but softened. "I'm sure there's a thing or two in me that you don't quite agree with."

"I wouldn't change a thing," insisted the redhead, firmly enough that it made Natsuki a little uncomfortable. The dark-haired woman blushed, and Mai eventually sat back down with a self-conscious grin, rubbing the back of her head. "Eh…sorry. I shouldn't say stuff like that; I know you're not-"

"-No," interrupted Natsuki somewhat hesitantly. "No, it…it's alright. Just… Look, just forget it."

Mai nodded, and ventured a slow smile. "Well how about you take me back and we'll get dinner started, hm? And while I'm busy cooking, _you_ can go find your girlfriend and make it all up to her again, right?" She cocked her head to one side. "Deal?"

"Fine," replied Natsuki with a rueful grin. "And then?"

"And then you can come over for dinner and tell me all about it!" Mai beamed at her. "I wanna know how it goes!"

"I _might_. Perhaps, if you cook something worth eating."

The redhead crossed her arms with a disgruntled expression. "I'll have you know that my cooking is better than anything you've ever tasted! Mikoto seems to like it well enough, and _you_ certainly never complained whenever I made you lunch back when we were Corals."

Natsuki shot her a derogatory grin that was almost but not quite a sneer. "That's because I knew your little "fan club" would probably kill me for it."

"Fan club…what fan club? Now you're just making stuff up!"

Thusly, the conversation quickly returned to what could loosely be deemed normal.

An hour or so later, Mai was still sitting right there in the restaurant as she had been, alone, gazing down into the bottom of an empty cup with a blank expression. Her lunch-mate had long since left and the bill still sat on the table in its neat little saucer, waiting for her. Her fingers worked over and against each other slowly, crossing over and over in abstract patterns as she sat, deep in thought.

"_I wouldn't change a thing."_

She sighed. "Stupid," she muttered under her breath. "That's not what she needs to hear right now." She shook her head, closing her eyes again for a moment. "Not now…"

She didn't notice the shadow suddenly falling across her from behind, so wrapped up in her own mind was she, still running back over and over the recent happenings again and again. "Stupid…you can't just say things like that any more, Tokiha. You're not a little girl any more."

"Oh, I think you're just as youthful as ever, personally." Before she could react, there were hands over her face, covering her eyes. "Guess who," said a _very_ familiar voice.

"Wh…what the…" Mai searched desperately for something coherent to say. "Midori!"

"Bingo!"

Mai brushed the hands off her face and stood up quickly, the chair squeaking as it rubbed against the floor. She turned and…sure enough, there she was. "Midori," Mai repeated, incredulously.

She looked just as vibrant as she always had, dressed quite casually in a pair of loose, dark trousers and a bright crimson sweater that, despite its best efforts, couldn't hide her chest. The overload of red was almost painful on the eyes at first, but Midori pulled it off just as well as ever.

Mai blinked, and a look of confusion overcame her. "That's…you must be over thirty by now, but you look exactly like I remember. But that was…almost ten years ago…"

Midori stabbed a thumb to her chest with a displeased expression. "I'm seventeen, damn it!"

"But-"

"Seventeen," insisted Midori, enunciating loudly. Mai laughed at her and sat back down.

"Okay, okay, fine…but what in the world are you doing _here_ all of a sudden?" She looked across the table when the other woman took a seat opposite her. "Weren't you working for the academy when I left?"

Midori leaned back into her seat, crossing her legs with a grin. "Well, like you said," she began, waving one hand, "ten years is a long time. I've been places. Got bored with teaching, thought I'd go and hop around the country for a little while."

"I never would have thought you'd be a hitch-hiker, Midori." The orange-haired woman shook her head. "Doesn't suit you, does it?"

"_You_ gave me the idea, miss "I've had more jobs than you've had boyfriends." Crazy girl." There was a highly conspicuous pause, where usually Mai would make some sort of defensive comment or, more likely, poke back at the elder woman herself. Instead, there was silence. Midori skewed an eyebrow and looked pointedly at the orange-haired girl sitting across from her with a curious expression. "Mai?"

Mai was wringing her hands under the table and hiding it quite well, but she couldn't conceal that nasty habit she had of biting the edge of her bottom lip in her mild anxiety. "I…sorry…I just, I was thinking about…" she stuttered out a little too quickly.

"Oh, now I know for sure that there's _something_ bothering you." Midori leaned forward over the table with a mischievous smirk. "What's wrong, hm? Boy troubles? I though I'd gotten you over that years ago…"

"It…that's not quite it," retorted Mai, blushing almost unnoticeably. She stared down at the table for a few moments, putting her hands flat on the table in front of her.

"…_all I wanted…"_

"I think," she began carefully. "I think…I may have _almost_ said something that perhaps…I really shouldn't have almost said." Then the redhead shook her head, smiling self-consciously. "I think I said quite a few things I shouldn't have, to be honest. I'm afraid she might start asking…uncomfortable questions about it later."

"She?" Midori cocked her head at the younger woman.

Mai tried to hide the sudden flush in her cheeks with a pout and a disgruntled look, arms across her chest. "It…it's not like that! You know I don't…"

Midori set her a cool, hard stare. "Oh, I think it very much is, else you wouldn't react like _that,_ would you? Besides, don't give me that "I don't swing that way" crap. I seem to remember a rather interesting "intensive study session" we had that one time…"

"Could we _please_ not talk about that," interrupted Mai, by now blushing rather profusely and squirming uneasily in her seat. "You know how…uncomfortable it makes me."

"I've told you once," Midori argued with a dismissive wave, "I've told you a thousand times. A little experimentation is healthy for a growing girl."

Mai frowned at her. "Jeez, Midori, you're still as much of a pervert as I remember!"

Midori just laughed.

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Outside was the heat of summer, but inside was cold, almost uncomfortably so. The heavy draped curtains drawn across a wide bay window, sealing out the sunlight with their own inky blackness. They rose all the way to the ceiling, hanging from a thick semi-circular wooden rail that ran all the way across above the huge panel windows that overlooked an otherwise picturesque view of the estate. The walls were a dull sort of grey colour that did little to dispel the darkness of the room, and the ceiling high above was an equally dull shade of off-white. The floor was mostly a dark, polished wood, with a thick, square red carpet covering a large square in the centre of the room, creating a stylish bordered look. In the middle of the room itself stood a low wooden table, a couch and a small footrest, and two matching armchairs all in the same polished wood and crimson leather. Only a small table lamp illuminated the room, throwing just enough of a soft orange glow over the table and its surroundings for, say, reading a book, or simply relaxing peacefully.

Both of which Shizuru was renowned for, privately of course. It was _her_ room; the mistress of the house was often found lounging on her favourite couch with any one of a number of books from her own personal library, or perhaps, on a nice day, relaxing and drinking tea beside the window, admiring the view. It usually depended on her mood, and that was subject to change at any moment, as her closest and most trusted knew so well.

To a stranger, a first impression may have been of an older, reclusive woman, who would prefer to dwell in her own solitude. It came as a surprise for few to find out they were not so far from the truth.

"I've suggested time and again that she should have a fireplace put in here, but she said she'd never use it anyway."

Natsuki looked swiftly up towards the open door at the sound of a familiar voice, her suit creaking irritatingly against the leather couch on which she was more perched than sat. Her impatience gave way to a comfortably expressionless face as a short, unimpressive young girl in a maid outfit came into view.

"Good afternoon, Lae-"

"-Please, Miss Kuga," interrupted the maid with an apologetic gesture as she stepped into the room with a click from her heels on the wooden floor. "I know what you're going to say and you needn't worry. I've always made time for whatever business you may have, for the Mistress' sake if nothing else." She motioned toward the table, upon which stood a silver tray laden with pot and saucer. "I see you've already reacquainted yourself with our hospitality."

Natsuki gently laid the cup in her hand back down in its proper place, now empty. "Sakura was such a good hostess, and so insistent, I simply couldn't refuse the offer. The one with the pink ribbon…that _is _Sakura, isn't it?"

"You've a most impressive memory, Miss Kuga." The maid chuckled lightly to herself before taking the tray from its resting place on the table. In the dim light, it was obvious that she was not of Japanese descent, judging solely by her face. She was short for her age, coming up just a touch below her mistress' shoulder, as Natsuki has seen them side by side once before, but she was also quite stocky for such a young girl. Her relatively diminutive figure and her usual posture belied an avid amateur boxer, hidden beneath an almost demeaning maid's uniform. Most striking, however, were her unusually dark, crimson eyes.

"I'm sure you already know why I'm visiting…"

"I'm afraid that you'll be sorely disappointed in that case." The maid turned and carried the tray briskly to the door, where another girl seemed to have simply appeared out of nowhere, ready to take the object from her. When she turned back to face her guest, she swung the heavy wooden door shut again behind herself with a deep, resounding thump. "I'm sorry to inform you that my mistress is currently deeply involved in very important work. It doesn't appear that she'll be available in person for quite some time."

"That's not a problem," dismissed Natsuki with a wave of one hand, holding her impassive expression. "What I actually came here for is to let her know that my…personal investigations," she continued carefully, "have yielded some interesting information. I thought she might like to examine some of it herself." She reached into the mock-up of a jacket attached to her suit and slid a small white envelope from the inside pocket, placing it flat on the table.

The maid eyed the package hesitantly at first. "Well I'll make sure to let her know you were here looking for her," she said after a moment's pause, turning a cheerful smile to the Japanese woman. "And I'll also be sure to pass on this…information…to her in person. Is there anything else you'd like me to tell her? She appears to be rather concerned about you as of late."

"I'm not in a very good mood with Shizuru at the moment," explained Natsuki, rising to her feet. She said no more.

The maid smirked as she turned to watch her guest walking towards the door. "I will personally see to it that she is made fully aware of your displeasure, Miss Kuga." Then she muttered something under her breath in German with a slightly worrying chuckle as Natsuki closed the door again behind her.

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Not ten seconds later, the phone rang. Or bleeped, rather.

Shizuru groaned. Then she hoped no one had heard. Well, besides her secretary, who always seemed to be standing outside her office door at just the wrong…

"Ma'am…"

…moment. Shizuru let out a long sigh as she reached out and snatched up the mobile that still sat chirping on her desk.

"Not now, Motoko," she called through the locked door. "I'm _very_ busy right now."

"But it's-"

"-It doesn't matter," snapped the older woman. "Make an excuse." She turned her attention back to the laptop computer sitting on her desk, and the contents of the document-holder that had been sprawled haphazardly about it. She brought the phone, still blaring away for her attention, up to her head and thumbed a button. "Hello?"

"Mistress," said a voice that Shizuru recognized immediately. "I'm sorry to bother you at work, but Miss Kuga came to see you…"

"Laeventine, please," replied Shizuru over her, "I've told you not to call…" She blinked. "Natsuki came to the house? That doesn't seem like her at all. She almost never visits me at home, or at least, certainly not without warning." She caught herself starting to gnaw at her bottom lip, a habit she thought she had long since abolished, and stopped. She listened intently while her hands busied themselves sifting through the papers on her desk for a certain set of forms and a pen. "What did she say?"

"Not much I'm afraid, Mistress. She did leave you something, however; she said it was important and that you'd probably want to see it as soon as possible." Shizuru was about to answer when the door to her office flew open, and in dashed a rather flustered-looking (or as flustered as she ever got) secretary.

"Fujino-san," insisted the blonde woman in a surprisingly urgent tone of voice. "Ma'am, _please_, it's urgent. There's a matter that requires your immediate attention."

Shizuru folded her computer shut with a click and swept most of the papers on her desk over to one side in a loose pile, rising quickly from her seat. She gestured toward the door and Motoko preceded her out.

"I'm afraid I'll have to call you back. Please take care of Natsuki-chan's…package." With that, she snapped her phone shut and slid it back into her pocket.

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Mai leaned against the half-open door of her apartment, head hung, her eyes on her shoes. She let out a deep breath and lurched forward as the door swung shut behind her.

"Stupid Midori," she grumbled under her breath.

"Mai," called out a familiar voice. "Mai, you're back!" Obviously, she hadn't quite been quiet enough. Mai turned to make sure the door was properly closed and was startled by a sudden weight on her back, skinny arms clinging tight round her middle. The redhead let out a surprised yelp.

"Mikoto-chan…" Mai giggled, trying to turn around to face the young girl. "You know, you can let go now. I'm not going to run off or anything."

Mikoto beamed up at her. "Mai food!"

Mai laughed and patted a hand affectionately on the youngster's head. "Okay then, dinner sounds good right about now. How about you pick today, hm?"

Mikoto looked puzzled.

"Eh? What's wrong?"

Mikoto looked down at nothing in particular and started squinting. Then she started humming and shaking her head slowly from side to side, muttering to herself under her breath.

"What is it, Mikoto?"

The young girl looked up with a start. There was that enrapt look of adoration in her eyes again, just like always, that made Mai feel oddly secure. Her expression changed to delight and she opened her mouth to reply…

…there was a long pause…

"Anything Mai cooks is good!"

Mai chuckled, and shook her head. "Silly thing." Certainly, everything was going back to the way it had been, although a few things were quite profoundly different now than she remembered them. She put her arms back around the young girl before her and ran a hand through Mikoto's thick dark hair. "It feels a lot better to be back now and to have all my memories back…even if a lot of them don't make much sense…" A frown crossed her lips.

Mikoto blinked at her, puzzled expression quickly returning. "Mai?"

Mai shook her head. "Never mind that, Mikoto-chan. Come on and let's get started." She moved to pull away from the embrace, and found herself trapped.

"Mai…" whined the young girl, staring up at her with such a concerned look on her face and squeezing tighter around the older woman's waist. Mai blinked back at her.

"W…what is it?"

"You're not feeling good," replied Mikoto plainly, her expression darkening slightly as she leaned up towards the redhead's face.

Mai flushed. It wasn't as if Mikoto wasn't a terribly clingy young girl, and didn't tend to be awfully affectionate with her unofficial guardian whenever the opportunity presented itself, often at rather inappropriate times. Nor was it that Mai didn't sometimes enjoy having such honest affection poured on her, with no real love life to speak of and nothing in the way of family, discounting her long-absent younger brother. It was just that the two circumstances really shouldn't have gotten mixed up like that, or so _Mai_ thought at least.

Not that she was doing much thinking at all right at that moment. Somehow, the sight of those big, wide golden-yellow eyes staring up at her with a deep-felt fondness was almost mesmerizing. How little Mikoto had grown, she suddenly noticed, as where before the dark-haired young girl had been face-on to Mai's stomach area, now her eyes were level with the redhead's rather prodigious bust, and she was only getting taller every day. She had shaken off the last little bit of that childish appearance from their earlier years, though her aura was still so immature at times. Mikoto had grown into a rather tall, skinny young teenager, and she was still growing, where to only time could say. Besides her newfound physical maturity, there was a strange light behind that naïve young gaze that made Mai feel a little uncomfortable at times, a look that she really felt she should recognise.

"Mai…"

Mai took a deep breath. Surely, something would happen now, some sort of comical coincidence to shatter the mood, just as it always had done to her in the past. Surely, Mikoto would come to her senses at the last moment…

…or not.

And then she was too busy being kissed to worry about anything else. Mikoto certainly kissed like a girl, a very young, very inexperienced girl. It was barely a touching of lips. A puff of warm breath wafted over the redhead woman's face.

And then Mikoto was staring up at her again with that same look of complete and total adoration, and a hint of a hopeful expression in the corner of her eye.

"A…" Mai bit off her words. She could certainly rule it out as Mikoto being overly affectionate again, as she so often was, but there had most definitely been _something_ there, something so distinctly…_intimate_ that Mai simply couldn't get her mind off it. "W…why," she asked the young girl, trying not to sound too discouraging lest Mikoto get the wrong idea.

Mikoto pouted at her, rather uncharacteristically, that troubling glint in her eye yet. "Mai shouldn't feel so lonely."

Mai shook her head and smiled ruefully down at the youngster. "I'm not lonely, Mikoto-chan. I just…" She sighed and leaned back against the door a little. "Midori says I'm being all closed-off and all lately and I guess she's right. I've just been feeling a little overwhelmed what with all these memories I never knew I had… I suppose I just need to relax a little, get used to how my life is now."

Mikoto grunted affirmative in reply, her face now thoroughly buried into Mai's cleavage.

Mai chuckled at her and patted a hand atop the young girl's head. "It's hard to do with nobody around, you know. I used to be good at being an independent woman, but now I feel like I've just stepped back about five years. It's like being a lost college student again."

"Mai's never alone," replied Mikoto insistently as she looked up at the redhead, her usual childishly affectionate expression back at last. "You'll always have me, Mai."

Mai blinked. Then she leaned down to her young companion and planted a firm kiss on Mikoto's left cheek. "Thank you."

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Shizuru hissed a curse under her breath as she walked briskly back towards her office. Of course, she showed no outward irritation, as always, but inside she was fairly seething.

"I'm sure it was just an accident, after all. He _was_ new to the job." She waved a dismissive hand and put on her most convincing disaffected smile. "I'll just halve his pay for the month; that should remind him to be more careful with hazardous chemicals in future."

Motoko suppressed a mild grin. "Yes, ma'am," she replied in her natural monotone. "I'll see to it right away."

As they rounded the corner, a strange smell seemed to waft along the corridor toward them, from the direction of the office. The closer they came to the door, the stronger the smell seemed to get. It was definitely coming from inside the office. Shizuru stopped at the door and sniffed, and looked at the shorter woman beside her with a puzzled expression.

"There haven't been any cleaning staff through here while we were gone, have there?"

Motoko took a deep breath and furrowed her brows.

"That's not bleach," she stated in an unnerving tone of voice. "That smells like…" She trailed off, staring at the door. It was only then that Shizuru noticed the door had been left ajar, which she certainly would never do. She pushed the door wide…and gasped.

It looked like a pack of wild dogs had demolished the whole room. Everything was in pieces, most of them rather small, making a terrible mess of broken glass and wood splinters all over the floor. There were plenty of large cracks in the walls, too, as if someone had taken a huge pickaxe and gone completely mad. The only thing relatively intact was the door to Shizuru's private office, though there was still a large hole straight through the wood around where the handle had been. The brunette didn't need to check to know that her room had suffered likewise, perhaps even more so.

Something moved at the edge of her vision. Something bright.

Shizuru turned on her heel. A flash of pink disappeared round a corner trailing the edge of a thick grey coat behind.

"Damn it," she hissed to herself as she took off after the unknown figure. Motoko yelled after her, but she wasn't listening. She dashed off down the corridor after that pink flash.

"Come back here," she yelled after the figure, but it didn't work; the figure slid round another corner, back still toward her, and when Shizuru got to where she had last seen it, whoever it was…was gone.

She resisted the urge to growl, or stomp her foot, or any one of a number of other, equally pointless things.

"Ma'am," gasped Motoko as she appeared from seemingly nowhere round the corner, breathing heavily but none the worse for wear. "What…what was that?" Shizuru didn't answer, and instead fished her mobile from the pocket inside her jacket. At least she'd taken _that_ with her when she'd left the office, thank Kami. Her thumb mashed the buttons with an almost frightening speed.

"They got your computer, ma'am. And they emptied your desk…"

Shizuru lifted the phone to her ear, seemingly oblivious, but the way her lips curled downward told the blonde woman that her superior was definitely listening and, worse yet, highly agitated by the whole event.

"Natsuki?"

Seeing the older woman's face light up like that, however she tried to conceal it, it was clear that a weight had been lifted. She immediately seemed more relaxed, more like her usual self.

"I'm afraid not," she continued into the phone, and Motoko could easily sense the subtle intimation that she best make herself scarce. She started slowly edging away from the conversation, checking over the PDA in her breast pocket while her superior busied herself with personal matters.

"No, it's nothing to worry about, really. Just a little problem at work." Shizuru started nibbling on her bottom lip, then stopped again immediately. "I'll have to ask you to do something for me, if you're not busy at the moment. Someone just left the hospital and…"

There was a pause for a moment, and Shizuru nodded very slowly to herself several times. She was tensing up again, ever so gradually, most likely just worrying herself a touch too much as usual.

"Yes, Laeventine said you left something for me. I'll see to it as soon as I get home."

Motoko turned, and started back towards her office, now destroyed. For a brief second, the thought crossed her head that perhaps it was for the best. She never had liked that stupid fern anyway.

"Natsuki?"

Motoko stopped. She waited…

"Natsuki? Natsuki?"

She turned. Shizuru was looking worse than she had before the call, and was gripping the phone so tight her knuckles turned white. Motoko felt that horrible sinking feeling she usually got on a Thursday morning, just before all the ER patients started arriving from wherever it was people in Tokyo went out on a Wednesday night, and swallowed hard.

She swept back down the corridor to the brunette woman's side and looked up at her. Shizuru didn't seem to notice. For a few very long, nerve-wracking moments, she simply stood there like that, frozen.

At last, she turned, thrust the firmly device into her assistant's hand, and then she did something that Fujino Shizuru almost never did.

She ran.

Motoko knew what she would hear, but for some reason, she still couldn't stop herself holding the phone up to her own ear.

The line was dead.


	8. Chapter 8 : Parlance

It was mid afternoon on a rather average day. The sun was high, clouds were slowly gathering over the Tokyo bay, and the air was gradually getting cooler as the day wore on. The sun was duller and duller in the sky with each passing minute, fading slowly behind the growing cloud cover. At a certain hotel somewhere in downtown Tokyo, the lobby was surprisingly quiet and the reception staff were enjoying a few moments' peace. It looked like it was going to be a nice, peaceful evening.

How wrong they were.

The door opened, and a young woman emerged in a flash of colour, a thick mane of blonde hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. She appeared dressed in a long, narrow blue dress that hugged close to her figure, ending just above her knees. A slit up the side from the hem to her hip showed off plenty of her toned thigh muscles as she moved. Her chest, however unremarkable it may have been, still pushed out the top to good effect, showing off a decent tract of cleavage framed within the V-cut of the dress. The back was cut away to just below her shoulders in a broad oval, showing more of that lightly tanned skin that matched her arms and legs. An odd half-smirk tugged at the corners of her painted red lips as she placed her hands imperiously on her hips and stared across the lobby, eyes hidden behind a pair of stylishly slender dark glasses. A pair of narrow red high-heeled shoes squeezed about her feet, lifting her an extra few inches from the ground.

In she strode with an imposing aura about her, straight towards the reception desk, her heels clicking out a rhythm on the polished floor. She spared no sidelong glances to the few patrons in the bar across the lobby, or any of the other staff scattered about. With the air of supremacy and attention she created, few people paid much notice to the tall, modestly handsome young man entering the hotel after her.

"Good afternoon, miss," said one of the receptionists as the blonde woman approached, smiling pleasantly. "Can I help you at all?"

The blonde woman put a hand on her hip again and the other on the desk. Between her fingers, she held a small piece of paper, which she showed to the receptionist.

"I'm lookin' for this girl here," she stated in a smooth Osakan accent. "Her name's Suzushiro. She's an important lady…like me." The receptionist took a brief look over the photograph and nodded slowly. Then she turned to the rack on the wall behind her.

"May I ask who you are, miss? I've been informed that Miss Suzushiro doesn't want visitors."

"I'm an old friend," replied the blonde woman with a grin.

"I see." The receptionist gestured towards the far wall of the lobby. "Miss Suzushiro is staying in the rooftop suite. Take the elevator to the upper lobby and then follow the sign along for room number thirteen."

"Thanks," chirped the blonde woman, smirking slightly wider for a moment before turning to leave again. She strode off across the lobby in much the same manner as she had arrived.

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Up on the third floor of the hotel, all was quiet. Almost…too quiet, one might say.

There was a knock at the door.

For a moment, there was a hectic scramble to gather clothing from where it had been scattered haphazardly about the room. Both of the young women therein were soon dressed, if a little disorderly, and Arika leaned up against the door with one hand on the handle, the other holding a shoe.

"Hello?"

"It's me," replied a familiar voice.

"Miyu." The redhead stepped back and opened the door wide for their untimely guest. As the android entered, Nina, still seated on the bed, flushed slightly and held the covers up to hide her bare chest.

"I am afraid I will not be here for very long," Miyu continued, shutting the door quietly behind her and then flicking the lock. "There is much that I must tell you, and we have little time. We have to leave, immediately."

"But," began Nina.

"_Now_." And she said it with such weight that both girls felt profoundly obliged to obey. Ruby eyes briefly scanned around the room. "We will leave by the window and I shall take you both to a more secure location. Bring only what you can carry."

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Outside, a thick blanket of dark cloud was gathering rapidly over the city, to hang sullen and grey in the cool summer air. The sun still flickered down through ever narrowing patches of clear sky, radiant fingers clawing through the dark, sullen shroud towards the Earth below.

The hotel stood back from the main road by a good distance, separated by a high flat-topped concrete wall the same pale sandy-brown colour as the main building itself. A semi-circular roadway two lanes wide curved in past the main lobby, leading under a vast concrete awning that stretched out from the building façade over the main entrance, two thick columns in matching beige supporting either corner.

The sharp screeching of tyres brought the attention of those few lingering about outside the lobby entrance. A large, unmarked black SUV that seemed to have appeared out of thin air came swerving violently around the narrow slip road with frightening speed. It shrieked to a stop right in front of the lobby doors, one monstrous wheel up on the carefully swept paving, and five doors opened in unison. Out climbed six nondescript persons all wearing the same bulky white body suits, the kind that fire-fighting teams often used, with a hefty cylindrical pack on the back and darkened faceplate obscuring all features. The vehicle doors snapped shut and locked themselves afterward with an angry beep.

All six figures dashed into the lobby at a hurried jog with no regard for by-standers, or the hotel security guard standing by the door.

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"Thanks," said the blonde woman as the tall stranger held the door for her. He nodded back to her as she stepped in and the doors closed behind with a sharp ping.

"So," she began idly. "Which floor?"

"Three," replied the tall man, unbuttoning his coat. The woman nodded in turn and then reached up to the low metal ceiling and yanked a small black orb from its moorings.

"Think they're still there?"

"Hell no, she'll have moved them both by now."

Midori grunted as she swept the wig off and discarded it to the floor along with her glasses. Her partner handed her a gas mask in exchange, which she quickly worked down over her face. The dress tore neatly down the back and was swapped for a more practical set of jeans and a thick, bulky orange sweater.

"What're the odds we get there before they do?"

Midori chuckled. "Have you _seen_ these guys climb stairs? It's fucking scary. I just hope there's at least a trail for us to follow. Maybe if we're lucky we can keep them busy here and give the kids time to get the fuck out."

Reito settled his own mask down over his face and then fished what looked like an automatic shotgun out from the bag he had been carrying. He plucked out several small objects, fat black disks just big enough to fit in his palm, and handed a few to the redheaded woman beside him along with a second weapon, much the same.

"Well," he sighed heavily, "if we _are_ lucky, they'll be very happy to see you."

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Six identical white-suited figures crowded into the elevator, apparently heedless of the single occupant. The doors slid shut with a ping and then only the hum of the motors overhead could be heard.

The man looked around him in mild disbelief. Six identical figures in identical suits, almost like some sort of mysterious military force or something. He shuffled his feet and clutched his suitcase a little closer.

The lights above the door crawled up through the first and second floors.

Suddenly, six identical automatic rifles appeared as if from nowhere and the sound of six bolts being cocked all at once shortly broke the silence.

The man swallowed. Hard.

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Nina cursed.

"What is it?"

"We've got company already," she explained, turning back away from the window and drawing the curtain shut behind her. "There are people in big white suits on the first floor balcony. They probably knew we might try to jump out the window."

Arika brushed her thumb against the GEM in her ear, but she hesitated when Nina shook her head in reply.

"We can't risk that here."

"You are most certainly correct, Miss Wang," said the tall android woman standing by the door in an unnervingly calm voice. "More so than you may in fact be aware. It would be unwise to risk being detected."

"Detected," puzzled Arika as she watched the blue-haired woman picking up a large dresser as if it weighed nothing at all and wedging it firmly against the door. She looked briefly back at Nina, who answered her only with the same confused expression. "By who?"

"Not who," Miyu replied calmly, "what. Please, gather all that you can carry, quickly. We do not have much time."

Nina immediately busied herself dutifully stuffing the little clothing they had collected over the past weeks into a large brown suitcase, along with several bottles of water and other assorted beverages. She motioned to the redhead standing rather dumbly beside her with a scowl. It took only a moment for Arika to collect herself again and begin sorting out various essentials from the contents of the room to be packed up for the journey.

As they hurried to prepare, there came a heavy thumping sound from outside in the corridor. Once, twice, and again the sound of a heavy door being beaten in. At the sound of wood splintering, Miyu turned to her two young charges with an expressionless face.

"We must leave. Now."

Nina snapped the suitcase shut with a loud click. "Well how exactly do you propose we do that? There are only two ways out of this room and they're both blocked."

Miyu turned her gaze to the wall opposite the bed, obscured mostly by the extravagantly large television sitting on a shelf. She stared for a moment, seemingly transfixed.

"Stand back."

"What? Why?"

Miyu looked at the redhead briefly before moving to stand in front of the wall, left arm raised. Her left hand shone with a strange golden-yellow glow. A crackling sound issued forth as it dissolved into several thin spiralling bands trailing back to her wrist, where now there was an empty socket, as if her entire forearm were a hollow tube. An unrecognisable device issued forth, a short length of slender metal rod with a thick, snub-nosed bulb on the end.

"Cover your eyes."

"Oh fu-"

With a whoosh, the bulb leapt off the tip of the android's arm, straight into the wall, detonating on impact with a tremendous boom. A thick cloud of dust and smoke filled the room.

Arika couldn't see much through all the haze, but she felt a hand grabbing her by the back of her dress, and she reflexively put her arms as far around Nina's waist as possible, clutching the other girl close as they were both carried off into the unknown.

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The explosion rocked the entire hotel. The lights flickered. The elevator shuddered and swayed violently.

Midori cursed and righted herself.

"Stupid fucking machine," she hissed to no one in particular. "No respect for innocent bystanders, that's her problem."

Her partner simply smiled reassuringly down at her and handed her several more shells. Midori snatched them up eagerly and jammed them one by one into the gun.

"I should have turned her off for good when I had the chance."

"Maybe…but you'd regret it."

The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open with a soft ping. Midori strode out into the empty corridor, her partner trailing behind her. "You know me too well, Reito," she called over her shoulder.

That tall young man, her partner, hefted his own weapon by the shoulder strap and made to follow on behind her.

"Seriously though…why do you keep calling me that?"

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"Well, this is familiar," chimed the redhead.

Natsuki looked up at her. "What?"

Mai grinned and rapped her knuckles against the other woman's helmet. "Have you forgotten already? Back when we were training, remember, the first time they tried to get you to fly?" The dark-suited woman put a hand to her head with a groan.

"Don't remind me. You never let me live it down afterwards." Natsuki shifted her weight around and ended up flat on her back on the ground, breathing quite heavily. She stretched her left arm out, now no longer pinned under her side, and started flexing and wriggling her lower legs. "Damn, that stings."

"It would," chuckled the redhead as she knelt down beside her.

On closer inspection, the side of Natsuki's suit right from her left knee up along her thigh and hip, along the back of her left shoulder and most of the left sleeve was ragged, but not torn through. The jacket sleeve was tattered and rubbed right through over her elbow, but the tighter layer below had fortunately withstood the impact. Her left hand was making a strange shape, so Mai poked it.

"Ow."

"It's not broken then."

Natsuki gave her a look of doubt, which Mai naturally didn't see through the heavy helmet. "How can you be sure?"

She held up one finger with a learned expression. "Remember what Youko used to say, "You'd _know_ if it was broken." Come on, let's get this thing off." She took Natsuki's shoulders and gently lifted her upward, to much half-hearted protesting. Natsuki had the sense to get her hands back behind her and rested her weight on her arms.

"I can do it myself y'know," she muttered while Mai worked at the catch on her helmet.

Mai hesitated. "Oh…I didn't…"

"Stop that," interrupted Natsuki.

"Stop what?"

Natsuki pushed a finger into the redhead's chest. "You know what. You've been acting so edgy lately, really. What's going on?"

"I have no idea what you mean," Mai lied, pulling off Natsuki's helmet with a slight pop. Out fell a thick wave of dark blue, almost black hair, in a squashed and slightly misshapen mess down the back of her neck and down to the ground. The front of her hair was stringy and stuck to her forehead with sweat, and her faced looked slightly flushed. "You okay?"

"I just fell off a moving vehicle doing at least forty," deadpanned the suit-clad woman. "Of course I'm okay." She brought one hand up to rub at her cheek, breathing deeply. "I hate crashing." Mai just chuckled and gave her a gentle pat on the head with one hand.

"I should go see about that bike of yours. The thing looked a little broken when I got here." She moved to stand up, but a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

"Stop avoiding the question."

Mai blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you won't tell me what's wrong, why you're acting all weird like this lately." Natsuki fixed her with a most displeased look. "Can you honestly not trust me with it?"

Mai saw the concern in that perturbed half-pout, and more than that. "Of course I trust you," she replied, and the wall faded away again in a second, much to her relief. "It's just…very personal."

Natsuki said nothing. Her eyes slowly shifted down and away towards the ground, then over towards her bike. She groaned.

"Shit," she hissed. "That'll probably be another few hundred thousand for repairs…"

"But…I didn't think there was that much damage."

Natsuki pointed towards the vehicle with one hand, and Mai followed along her gaze. "See that big gap between the front wheel and the engine block?"

Mai nodded.

"That's not supposed to be there."

"Oh." Mai blushed. "Well…well I don't know much about bikes, okay?"

"Natsuki!"

Both women looked up at the sound of a familiar voice. A car was pulling up across the road, door already open, and out stepped a figure Mai recognised at once even from a fair distance. Her neat, dark suit and thick auburn hair looked as immaculate as ever, especially for someone who had been running around Tokyo (figuratively speaking) for the better part of twenty minutes.

"Shizuru," muttered Natsuki in a rather monotone voice. She didn't notice Mai next to her looking uncomfortable, wriggling out from under the hand on her shoulder. "How did you find us so fast?"

Shizuru stopped several feet away and gave her a confused look. She looked up at the redheaded woman, now standing, and then back to Natsuki again. Then she shook her head and smiled as she knelt down by Natsuki's side and placed her hands on the dark-haired woman's shoulders. "Are you okay?"

Natsuki rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, really."

"Nothing's broken?" Shizuru put an arm round her back and started lifting her gently up off the ground. "I'm just so glad you're okay. We wouldn't anything to happen to that beautiful body of yours, now would we," she giggled, mostly to herself.

"I'm fine," insisted Natsuki, brushing the hand off her shoulder. "For Kami's sake, I can stand up by myself, you know…"

"Don't be like that, Natsuki." The brunette pouted at her. "You never know when you might have sprained something."

"I'm fine," insisted Natsuki quite firmly, pushing Shizuru's arm away, and she gave the older woman a look that quite clearly said, in her vocabulary, 'quite fussing over me so much already.' "There's nothing wrong with me, Shizuru, really!"

For a second, Mai thought she felt something, but she wasn't quite sure if it was good or bad. Something was definitely odd about the whole relationship, between all three of them, and lately she was having trouble even understanding what it was herself.

Natsuki hefted herself to her feet and started dusting off her suit. "Besides, you're _both_ missing the point here. This wasn't an accident." She pointed to the road nearby where there appeared to be a shallow crater, almost half a meter across. "I know I didn't crash for no good reason. I have a feeling that there's an orphan somewhere near here."

"Mikoto said she smelled something," offered Mai. Then she looked around, puzzled. "Wait…where did Mikoto go anyway? She was right behind me a minute ago…" The youngster had probably gone chasing off after whatever it was she thought was there, as she often did. Mai mentally slapped herself for letting the girl out of her sight for even a second. She had done that repeatedly in the past; the ensuing chaos each time should have taught her otherwise.

Suddenly, Natsuki turned on the two behind her again with a hard, serious expression. "Shizuru, go home."

"Now Natsuki…"

"No, Shizuru," she insisted. "You _need_ to get home right now. I left something very important over there that only you should see. I have a feeling that whoever did this wouldn't want us knowing about it."

"I'm afraid you're right," relented Shizuru, putting on an impassive expression. "My office was just destroyed. Thankfully I wasn't in it at the time…"

Natsuki's fist unclenched at that and she let out a brief sigh of relief. Then she scowled. "Fuck," she hissed. "They're moving against us, whoever they are, and that can only mean we're getting close to _something_ they don't want us to know about."

"Do you think it could be the First District again," offered Mai hesitantly. Shizuru gave her a blank look and Natsuki just shook her head.

"I don't think they have anything to do with this. We really shouldn't be concerned with them any more."

"_Let's not talk about the First District any more,"_ said those deep green-blue eyes, and Mai nodded.

"Right."

Shizuru chuckled. "You're so cute when you get all commanding like that, Natsuki-chan…"

"Shizuru, please, not here."

Mai hid a giggle behind one hand.

"So," continued Mai once Shizuru was well out of sight. She peered over Natsuki's shoulder at the crater with a curious expression. "You two all better now, I take it?" Natsuki frowned back at her over her shoulder.

"I thought we'd already had this conversation…"

Mai straightened up with a half-grin. "Sorry. Forget I mentioned it." The dark-haired woman returned to inspecting the road surface. "Maybe I should go look for Mikoto anyway; she really shouldn't be taking this long. I'm almost starting to worry…"

"Don't, she's better than both of us at dealing with Orphans." Natsuki grimaced, almost a little jealous. "Not that that's much good if we've got another Sears on our hands."

"We survived Sears," argued Mai, hands on hips and a slightly smug expression.

Natsuki stood up at last and turned back to face her again, looking rather stern indeed. "_You_ almost didn't," she snapped, pointing accusatorily. "I'm not going to let you go blundering your way through things again and almost getting yourself killed."

"You're too sweet."

"Moron," muttered Natsuki, to which Mai just grinned cheerfully. "You do realise that if they know where Shizuru works, they already know where you live."

Mai paused, grin fading. "Oh. Crap." Now she frowned discontentedly. "Then what am I supposed to do, eh? Sleep at the café?"

"They won't know where _I_ live, at least, almost nobody does. All of my paperwork goes through my father's old business network."

Mai blushed.

"Don't you look at me like that," sighed the dark-haired woman. It was going to be one of those days again. "We slept in the same room for years, Mai, I don't think a few weeks is going to hurt anything."

Mai shook her head. "I'm just worried what Shizuru would say if she knew."

"Shizuru will just have to deal with it," replied Natsuki abruptly. "Not as if she can run my life for me." Then she blushed slightly herself despite her rather irate tone.

"You two aren't living together?"

Natsuki slapped her hand to her forehead. "Shit, you are slow sometimes, aren't you?"

"Well excuse _me_ for not prying in on your personal life," Mai shot back imperiously, "Little Miss Anti-social."

There was a brief pause, then both women started giggling uncontrollably. Mai was pointing, shaking her head, trying to say something but unable to catch her breath, and Natsuki had her face buried in both hands trying not to laugh outright.

There was just something so reassuringly familiar about it all.

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Suzushiro Haruka was a bold, brash, outgoing woman. She was energetic and forceful, and always had been, and little could slow her down once she got something into her head. She followed her own strict moral code unwaveringly, and would allow herself no doubt, no time to pause and over-think things, no second glances. She would listen to reason only if it adhered to her own sense of right. She was self-righteous and rather arrogant at times, because _someone_ had to be.

She was also brutally efficient in her methods and rigorous to the point of regularly overexerting herself. She would follow anything she started through to the very end whatever it took, and rarely would she take anything but her own personal effort as acceptable.

She was an infallible machine. If she made a mistake, she would either correct it at once or simply plunge on regardless, depending on whether it was worth correcting. She showed no weakness to friend or foe alike. She maintained an appearance of effortless superiority at all times. Her free time was mostly busily taken up keeping herself in peak condition, both physically and mentally, for she may appear at first glance just another overly busty blonde woman, but first impressions were rarely accurate. The soft contours of her body were muscle through and through, hard and powerful. Her lavender eyes held a wicked gleam, only accentuated further by the sinister appearance of her sweeping purple eye shadow.

Most people she met saw a tall, vibrant, imposingly attractive young businesswoman. Few knew anything beyond that. It was well known just how strong she was, and it was rumoured she was far smarter than she seemed. However, only one person in the whole world knew that Suzushiro Haruka snored.

Sometimes she even talked in her sleep, too.

Haruka breathed a deep, long sigh. It was getting rather late in the afternoon and there was plenty of work to be done…but for once she didn't feel like doing anything. It was a rather remarkable feeling, the urge to simply collapse into bed, or on the floor, or in a chair, or wherever, and just lie there for a while doing absolutely nothing. It was a feeling she had never quite gotten used to, no matter how often it might happen. That didn't mean, of course, that she couldn't take advantage of it as she was at that very moment doing.

The tip of her forefinger slowly drew a lazy, wavering line down along the side of that smooth white-skinned stomach and down the line between hip and abdomen. It stopped again just a few centimetres away from being indecent and ever so very slowly, she dragged the back edge of her fingernail up that taught, slender belly for the fifth time, following the faint contour as she went.

Yukino moaned softly in her sleep.

A devilish smirk spread across the mustard-haired woman's face. She brought her fingertip to the petite indentation of her sleeping wife's navel and slowly traced a circle round it.

Yukino moaned again, louder this time, with a satisfied sigh. Her mouth curled upward at the edges as she slept on. She shifted slightly in place as Haruka leaned down over her, her lips brushing against the brunette's ear.

"I can see you, you know."

Haruka felt her cheeks flush as she sat back up again, trying to look innocent. "I don't know what you mean." Her gaze fell lower when a hand met hers.

"I didn't say you should stop," purred the brunette woman.

"Who would have expected," Haruka murmured with a smile as she leant down over her wife's face, "that little Yukino could be so prodigious."

"Promiscuous, Haruka-chan." Yukino blinked. She made a delightful squeak when Haruka cupped her chest in both hands.

"Oh, I _know_ what I said."

Yukino batted her partner's hands away with a giggle and shuffled up to a sitting position. "Besides all that," she continued, "I think I've found something interesting regarding that incident in the park. If you'll let me up…" Haruka pouted at her, eliciting a giggle. "…I'll show you on the computer."

"I'm glad I got you that thing now," chuckled the blonde as she stood back and watched Yukino fix her clothing before she sashayed on out into the main room, leaving Haruka sitting on the bed behind her smirking to herself.

Yukino flicked off the television in the corner with a dismissive wave of one hand and parked herself neatly down in front of her computer again. She paused, yawning demurely and stretching her arms up over her head for a moment, her spine arching up and emitting several soft cracking sounds. Familiar hands appeared from behind and clutched neatly about her waist.

"So," Haruka purred, chin resting on her wife's shoulder. "What have you got for us this time, great detective?"

With a giggle, Yukino set to work once more. "Samsung, of all things." She tapped away for a while and soon the screen was filled with what looked like a newspaper article. "It seems that the usual strings are being pulled this time round, except something's not right about this one… Normally somebody else covers it up and then the local authorities come running to the rescue, not this time."

"Hm? Something auspicious?"

Yukino sighed and shook her head. "Suspicious, Haruka-chan."

"I know."

"_Anyway_, Samsung had no reason to be there. There's some weak excuse or other they gave to the press but I'm still not convinced. I think they're in on something, could be working for the government, could be with the First District. I can't tell yet."

"Well maybe we should delve a little deeper then? See what they're up to."

"If they're affiliated with the First District in any way, investigating them could be a big step in the right direction."

She was just about to elaborate on the situation, and Haruka was no doubt in the middle of scraping together some way of turning all this into an excuse to go do something strenuous, when there was a deafening bang from far below and the whole room shuddered around them ever so slightly. Haruka ended up on her back on the floor, and Yukino found her face in her keyboard.

"What the _fuck_ was that," demanded the blonde woman as she righted herself again, brushing herself off. From the look on her face, she had already decided that whoever was responsible would get a thorough seeing to from her, personally, for their troubles, and the sooner the better. She turned just in time to watch as the sun disappeared behind a huge dark shape that hung in the air just outside the window, like a malevolent black cloud.

Like a shark's head it was, a hammerhead, wedge-like and narrow at the front then sloping downward as it trailed further back, widening until it was a fat, flattened oval shape. At the end of each 'arm', and likewise two similar, larger mountings near the back, was attached an egg-shaped pod each bigger than a person, cut open at each end, mounted on bearings that turned every which way. Jet engines, judging by the heat shimmer rising from each pod, and the dark tinted glass that covered a central patch at the very front and curved along the underside a short way was a cockpit, downward facing. And under-slung below one arm of the hammerhead on a sturdy mounting…

Haruka stopped and stared as five barrels swung in unison, left then right, scanning across the room. The cannon slowed, and then stopped, coming to bear with an unnerving finality. The high-pitched whine of the motor was barely audible beyond the roar of the engines as the cannon span up. For a second, she almost felt contempt, and irritation most of all. Who did these people think they were pointing guns at her? But it wasn't aiming for her, and when she realised, it sent a chill right down her spine.

"Yukino…"

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"Something's wrong."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Midori scowled at her accomplice's grating sarcasm, and again at his mildly amused expression. This was clearly no laughing matter. "These guys aren't what I'm used to." She kicked at the sloped white helmet of the armoured figure lying facedown on the floor beside her, limbs a-splay as if it had been tossed down the narrow corridor. Her eye caught on the automatic rifle that accompanied it. "The District never carried lethal force on a containment mission before, and I find it highly dubious that they'd suddenly change their methods just for two little girls, nanomachines or no."

Her partner was too busy reloading the giant black rubber shells into his own weapon to pay too much heed. A dismissive grunt in the affirmative was all she got in reply.

"Oi!" She plucked a fake stone from one of the potted plants and tossed it at his head. "This is important, dummy! I think there's been a case of mistaken identity here."

"Well if it's not the First District," grated the young man, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and shooting her an equally fractious look, "who the hell could it be?"

"I don't know, and that's what bothers me the most."

"NATO found out about the project?"

Midori shook her head, a look of acutely focused concentration aimed at the plant beside her. "If anyone in the G8 knew, Fuji Industries would close down overnight and we'd both be dead already, allegiances notwithstanding. Somebody's up to something and I think I'd feel a lot better if I knew what it…"

"What?" The young man cocked his head slightly. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she replied, deadpan. Then, "get back in the elevator."

Her accomplice winced. "Uh oh. I know _that_ look." He hefted the shotgun over one shoulder and hurried back towards the elevator alcove.

That was when the lights went out.

There was a long, agonising period of black silence. The lights over the elevator had gone out, as had all the lights up and down the length of the corridor from one side of the hotel to the other. Without windows to let the daylight in, the hallway was completely dark, as if the air itself had turned opaque.

Suddenly, something was buzzing against her hip. Midori grunted and thrust an agitated hand into the pocket of her jeans.

"What," she hissed as she brought the small PDA unit to her ear with swift, practiced precision.

"I apologise for interrupting you on the job, however, there is something that requires your immediate attention."

Midori directed an incredulous look at the device in her hand. "Kan-chan, what the-"

"-don't have the authority to pursue them." An unfamiliar male voice cut in, bass and harsh. It was English, but she couldn't quite place the accent.

"I know that," said another man, this one with a pronounced Eastern European accent. "We must re-establish contact immediately and determine the situation. If this were to get out of hand…"

"Sir," a third voice came through slightly fainter, yelling from a distance; this one sounded vaguely American, but again the accent was barely there. "Report coming through from the Third. Commander Ramsey says that the HMS Valiant just left the formation, along with three of her escort group and the USS Trinity. Two more frigates from the Fifth are turning out towards International waters and another coastal assault ship, the Severnaya, disappeared from radar completely in the last two hours."

"That makes seven," barked the first man. "Where the hell is Norfolk?"

"No contact since yesterday, sir. Their signature cut out just South of Okinawa Island and we haven't heard a thing since. Even the GPS can't find them."

"That is impossible." The European again, and his accent was leaking in now. The stress was showing through the voice. "The EWACS should have found them by now."

"We lost contact with the last unit we sent out just this morning, right as they were flying over the target area."

"How the hell can we have just lost a whole carrier like that?"

"More importantly," interrupted another voice, smooth and calm and almost completely unidentifiable. "Admiral, sir, I think we should be asking who could possibly make something like a military ship disappear without trace. There must be some sort of hostile force at work here."

"I would hope not."

"Sir! The entire GPS locator network for the Fourth Pacific Fleet just stopped transmitting."

"Shit."

Midori snapped the device shut with a click, cursing under her breath. "Fuck…fuck…" Her feet were already in motion back toward the stairway at the near end of the corridor, disregarding the carnage around her for more pressing matters. She left her young partner, with his bag full of cheap weapons and the loaded shotgun, crouched down obediently near the elevator, and focused her thoughts forward.

How could she have been so stupid, to fall for a diversionary tactic such as this? There was only one agency at work here with the power to make military hardware "vanish" like that.

Fortunately, Midori still had the ultimate trump card.

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"So," Natsuki reiterated smoothly as she slid into her seat across the table. She folded one leg across the other and relaxed into place. "What was this big important thing you had to tell me about?"

Shizuru carefully set her cup down and leaned forward. She opened up the laptop computer that had sat patiently on the table up until then. The bright screen threw out a sharp illumination across her face. There was a few moments' quiet as she tapped briefly away and then turned the computer to face the other woman.

"Take a look for yourself," she answered at long last, gesturing to the device. "It's rather unbelievable reading. I had trouble taking it seriously myself at first."

Natsuki shifted forward to take a good look at the bright screen presented her. What she saw was most definitely intriguing.

"This looks suspiciously like a blank document to me, Shizuru." The brunette woman nodded solemnly in reply. Something about her expression told Natsuki that this was nothing trivial. "I thought you said that assistant of yours was investigating the national registry records? Hasn't she found anything interes-" She stopped.

Then she blinked. The realisation hit her like a brick to the back of the head. "She hasn't found _anything_, has she?"

Shizuru simply shook her head and sipped at her tea again.

Natsuki stared down at the screen in front of her, her mind working itself in overdrive. The dangerous cunning behind her eyes flickered with activity. "Mai has no file."

"Neither of them do," explained Shizuru. "Tokiha Mai does not exist in the Japanese National Registry, and if she is a Japanese citizen as she claims, then that's impossible. We haven't found a Mikoto matching that specific physical description either." She sighed and raised one hand in a gesture of admission. "Of course, the trouble with that avenue of investigation is that we have no idea if Mikoto is her family name or a given, or if it's even her real name."

Natsuki opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. She settled back into her seat again and took a few moments to collect her thoughts before jumping to conclusions, as that had proven truly foolish in the past.

"This has something to do with that death certificate, doesn't it?"

"It would appear so," speculated the brunette as she sipped at her tea again. "Tokiha Mai died several years before the current National Registry system was set up, so the only information they have about her is the record of her demise."

Natsuki put her hand to her forehead and took a slow, deep breath. "This is…" She sighed. "This situation just keeps getting more and more difficult. I don't know how much longer I can hide the truth, Shizuru."

"Then wouldn't you rather tell her yourself, before she finds out from some other source?" That made the dark-haired woman hesitate again. She glared a profoundly worried look at the computer on the table before her. Again, for a while, she said nothing, seemingly caught up in her own thoughts on the matter. Shizuru found she couldn't quite read those usually expressive green eyes of hers.

"I don't know if I could do that," Natsuki admitted finally. "I don't know if I could…if I could hurt her like that…"

"You certainly care about her, I can understand that."

Natsuki gave her companion a carefully measured look. "I've watched her go through some horrible things in the past. Things she really didn't deserve to have to deal with. I want to make sure that if there's any reason she has to experience that again, that it's a damned _good_ reason."

Shizuru smiled a slow little half a smile at her in return. "You're very protective of her at times, aren't you dear?"

"Someone has to be," she snapped back a little hastily, then dipped her head. "Besides…I guess I owe her."

"What's wrong, Natsuki dear? There's something bothering you, I can tell…"

"What do you mean?" Something in those green eyes implied there was something she wasn't saying. Natsuki just shook her head. "No, it just…it's nothing."

There was another long pause. Shizuru sipped calmly at her tea and Natsuki continued her nondisclosure. At least, for a time…

"That's not all, is it?"

Shizuru sighed heavily. "I'm afraid not. There's more, and it's about those two young girls we brought in last month…"

"They're not…like us," inquired Natsuki hesitantly, "are they?"

"I can't say. All I know is what the examination found. It took several weeks to identify all the anomalies and by that time, of course, the whole affair had been regrettably pushed to one side."

"You did say there was something strange about them both at the time, if I remember correctly."

Shizuru gestured to the computer still sitting patiently on the table. "You can take a look for yourself, if you like." She continued, while Natsuki sifted her way through the computer records, "the examinations were quite bizarre from the start. We had thought that the X-ray scanning was malfunctioning in some way since it repeatedly gave overexposed images for both girls. From the results of the other imaging systems, we came to the conclusion that, as improbable as it seemed, both girls were simply far denser than normal throughout."

Natsuki blinked and shot her a sceptical glance up over the top of the computer set before her, but said nothing in reply.

"As you can probably see," Shizuru carried on, "magnetic and cellular imaging on the blood samples we took revealed what was ultimately causing all the…abnormalities. Or at least, that is what we're assuming at this point." She sat back in her seat, cool-faced, one thigh cross the other with her cup once more in hand. It was several minutes of patient silence before either of them spoke again.

"Nano-robots," relayed Natsuki from the information presented her. Her expression showed her confusion. "So these girls apparently are full of subatomic robots. Besides the fact that injecting the things into a teenage girl seems completely pointless in and of itself, just where in the hell did they come from?"

Shizuru rested her hand atop the folder still sitting on the table in front of her, the folder full of thoroughly strange documents. "Where indeed," she replied, and Natsuki blinked at her and shook her head.

"Then…these two seemingly ordinary girls wandering the streets of Tokyo crammed full of expensive next-generation technology, that'd take a lot of money. Not many people in the world have the financial backing _and_ a means of obtaining something so rare." She looked from the computer to the blonde woman opposite her and back again, pensive. "Someone with a lot of money and a lot of influence. Someone who could arrange for the two of them to "escape" without question. Maybe they have something to do with Mikoto too…"

"Speaking of which," Shizuru interrupted hastily, "I heard the three of you had an interesting encounter earlier today. Where are those two now?"

"Home. _My_ home," emphasised Natsuki. "Safe, for the moment at least. Although Mai's probably taking my kitchen apart bit by bit as we speak."

Shizuru chuckled.

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Mai pulled back the shower curtain and reached out through the thick steamy haze with one hand. She frowned when her fingers met only a bare metal rod. A curse escaped her lips as she switched off the flow of water and shook the moisture from her hair before getting out.

Natsuki's bathroom had been an interesting experience. Instead of the rich extravagance that she had been expecting, Mai had found a functional room with a kind of simplistic modern style. It was a fairly small room, just a few metres across if that with smooth white tiles for flooring and a deep, cool blue across the walls that blended upward into pale cream on the ceiling. The tiles were cold and hard under her feet as she stepped out of the glass cubicle shower, taking a moment to find her footing lest she end up on her back on the floor, with perhaps a nice crack to the back of the head.

Mai leaned out into the empty hallway. The place seemed deserted, so she eased the door wide and stepped out, naked, into the corridor with feet still wet. The carpet sucked it up in seconds, soft and thick under her feet like a giant royal blue towel. For a moment, she had the most bizarre mental image of simply rolling on the floor to dry off, but she put that out of mind at once.

The next ten or twelve minutes (or it might have been longer, she had really no way to tell) were spent wandering around the apartment naked, still half-soaked, only vaguely searching for something to cover herself with.

It was by no means a very large home; most of the room space was confined to just one floor stuffed in above the main garage section downstairs where Natsuki kept her shop. There was just the one long corridor that stretched between the stairway at one end leading down to the front door, and a full-length mirror set into the end wall to give the illusion of space. The bathroom door was just beside on the left, an empty storage room just across from it, and between there and the entranceway staircase were five more doors. The one on the right, next to the bathroom, led into the only bedroom and was definitely off-limits. Opposite, there was first a kitchen and dining room, each with separate entrance though the wall between the two rooms had been removed completely on the inside. Then a much smaller door that opened on a very small closet, housing most of the apartment's heating and electrical supply, with stacks of towels and bedclothes on a series of shelves that took up the top third of the space.

The last door, however, was the one that caught her attention, beckoning the redhead toward it like any good mystery had a habit of doing. She completely forgot about the towels sitting in the closet, waiting to be used, and walked her way slowly and a little cautiously down to the very end of the corridor until she stood right at the top of the stairway. Now the front door to the apartment was to her back, and that strange door not more than a foot in front of her.

It was a tall door, reaching all the way up to the ceiling, unlike the others, and it had no visible frame either, simply lying flush to the wall around it. In fact, it extended _past_ the ceiling, as if it had been put in place long ago and then the plaster above Mai's head had been built lower down years later. She suddenly found herself wondering just how old the building really was. The hardwood was darkened with age to a deep, rich mahogany, streaked with onyx lines like long, sweeping brushstrokes. The handle was a burnished golden brass, no more than an apple-sized bulb on a thick, short stub. The lock, on the other hand, was a most intriguing affair, comprising of three rings, each as wide as a finger, with keyhole in the centre, a circular hole with a narrow strip passing downward that cut straight through all three rings.

It was unlocked, Mai decided for some reason, and tried the handle just to see. It turned a full circle, which necessitated a change of hands halfway through, but eventually there came the soft click from within and the door eased open. Inward, away from the overgrown ceiling, she was pleased to notice.

Inside was a very small room, dark and musty-smelling, the air thick with dust. The only feature was a spiralling metal staircase all in black, so very early 20th century, that led up through the ceiling, which Mai noticed was almost a full metre higher than it had been in the hallway outside. Up she went, out of some subconscious compulsion, straight up into the bright midday light streaming down from wherever the stairway led.

What she found was a surprise, to say the least.

Above the garage, above the apartment, and above the minimal loft space judging by how long that metal staircase had been, was a room. A room built right onto the roof it would seem, for all four walls around her were set with rows of windows that stretched midway down from the ceiling, all covered by identical pale cream drapes that had long since turned a dusky beige colour. The window frames were wooden, the walls were wooden, the floor was polished hardwood as was the roof and most of the furniture too. What amazed her the most, however, was not the room itself, but how well-kept the place appeared. There was not a sign of the thick miasma of dust that had hung in the stairwell, and the floor, the walls, the massive executive desk in the corner and the leather-panelled chair, the frames of every window, all of it was cleaned and polished to perfection as if it were brand new. The only sign of neglect was the stack of cardboard boxes piled neatly in one corner, which looked like they hadn't been touched by more than a duster in many years.

Then Mai looked up, and blinked in astonishment. The roof was a wooden frame, a latticework from which hung three ornate brass light fixtures at regular intervals along the slightly rectangular room. The space between the frames, however, was all glass panels so clean that they were almost invisible, and the midday sun poured in through them so bright and powerful that Mai could feel her bare skin warming in no time.

She closed her eyes. It was a stupid thing to do, but she did it anyway; there she stood in the middle of the room, naked, still dripping, and took several slow, deep breaths as the sun beat down upon her through the glass ceiling. Soon enough, she could feel the water not just evaporating but literally steaming off her skin as she soaked up heat from the sun like a plant. Soon she felt a rising tingle in her head, and realised her blood was rushing in her ears, hot and fast, as if she had just run a hundred metres full tilt.

"Wow," she gasped to no one in particular. Of all the strange things her body could do, that was still the one that always caught her off-guard. It was like being electrocuted in slow motion, but that wasn't quite it. The only thing she could even really liken it to was sex, because it worked the same way most of the time; build-up, heightening of the senses, an overall sensitivity that made her skin tingle and her hair stand on end, and then that feeling of energy piling upon itself over and over deep inside until it felt hot enough to burst. Unlike sex, however, this always ended more abruptly, without the release of all that built up energy, and it always left her feeling more than a little twitchy.

It took a moment or two to calm herself back down to the point where she could actually stop shivering, what with the huge reservoir of fresh energy now running through her veins like a second heartbeat, pulsing through her fast and powerful. When she finally opened her eyes again, the world around her seemed so much brighter, sharper, more colourful than it had a short while ago. Mai let her eyes wander around the room.

Her gaze came to rest on one of the cardboard boxes stacked in one corner; on one box in particular, which had been left half-open, and from which peeked a faint glimmer of reflected sunlight. Mai walked over to investigate and found herself measuring her stride carefully, for she had all but leapt into an all-out dash at the slightest impulse to move.

She dipped one hand carefully into the dark box and peeled back flaps of slightly worn, floppy cardboard until there was enough light to see inside. What caught her attention, what must have been making that glimmering she had seen, was a photograph. Mai took both hands to the flat, square black frame and delicately lifted it out of the box.

At first, the photograph prodded at the back of her mind with some sense of déjà vu, but she dismissed that almost immediately. It was just another of Natsuki's pictures, probably from when she had been attending college in… "this life" so to speak. The woman in the picture was young, but mature at the same time. Deep, emerald green eyes shone back at her from behind a pair of narrow, silver-framed glasses that perched somewhat precariously on the bridge of a finely sculpted nose. Slender, pale pink lips were tugged into just the slightest smile at their corners, as if the woman in the picture was trying not to laugh. A narrow white hairclip on the right side of her head, just above one ear, held back a mass of shimmering satin-blue hair that fell down over the shoulders of a white laboratory jacket and Mai finally recognised, with a start, who she was looking at.

"I thought I might find you up here."

Mai whirled round on the spot. Her hands came up to her chest on reflex alone, but with the picture clasped between them she could do little more than attempt, and fail pitifully, to cover her chest. She let out her breath when she saw that familiar face.

"Natsuki…" Mai dropped her hands to her hips again and shook her head. "Do you really have to sneak up on people like that?"

Natsuki crossed her arms over her chest with a pout, but her face was turning a soft shade of pink that completely ruined the look. "This room is private, Mai. What are you doing breaking in where you don't belong?"

"Ah…about that…" Mai groped around for an explanation.

"And what do you think you're doing wandering around my apartment naked, anyway?" Even as she said it, Natsuki's eyes were busy scanning up and down, taking a visual record of the nude figure before her. She definitely knew she was doing it, subconsciously or not, because her cheeks deepened several shades further.

"I was looking for a towel," Mai argued weakly, shuffling her feet like an errant schoolgirl. She raised her hands and the photograph filled her field of vision once again.

For a minute, neither of them said anything. Mai stood, staring at the picture in her hands, and Natsuki seemed just as preoccupied. The silence might have been awkward, once.

Mai shook her head. "I…I shouldn't really be going through your personal stuff like this, should I?" She strode back over to the pile in the corner, to which Natsuki raised a hand.

"It's fine," argued the dark-haired woman, still trying to avert her gaze. "I should have locked the door when I came out this morning." Mai sniggered, which only made her frown.

"I bet this place is amazing at night, what with the stars over this part of the city…" Mai didn't seem aware that she still had the picture in one hand as she danced back toward the centre of the room on one foot, looking up through the roof with a stupid grin. "Really romantic, I'd say. I bet Shizuru'd love it."

Natsuki stiffened slightly. "Shizuru wouldn't know," she said tersely. "I never bring anyone up here."

Mai paused, and now it _was_ awkward.

Before she could put her foot any further down her throat, however, Natsuki sighed and turned to look back down the staircase upon which she still stood. "I guess that's just sentimental, though, isn't it? I should really use it for something." She put a finger to her lip in a rather un-Natsuki gesture. Her eyes were focused somewhere beyond one wall. "I don't suppose she'd have approved of me wasting all this space, after all, would she?"

"I suppose she wouldn't," Mai concurred, hesitantly. She found herself looking back down at the picture, then up to the dark haired woman standing in the room with her. Natsuki definitely looked younger, more athletic, but there was some strange sparkle behind those green eyes in the photograph that Mai couldn't seem to find in the real thing. "Your mother must have been very young when she had you." It was a total guess, but something told her it was right.

"She was," Natsuki admitted, nodding slowly. "She was a very intelligent woman, too. She had a lot of ideas about me at first, but I don't think she ever really stuck to any of them for very long." A breath of soft laughter escaped her lips. "I never understood why father wasn't around much. I was always telling her how beautiful she looked, and she'd just laugh and shake her head at me…"

"I guess it runs in the family."

Natsuki felt violet eyes burning in the side of her head and did all she could to avert her gaze, and to hide the deep red flush across her cheeks.

"Unlike some," she shot back after a moment or two, with what she thought was sufficient venom. The grin spreading across her face totally ruined the effect, however. "I bet you were trying to flash the neighbours, weren't you? Not like you've got the body for it, after all."

Mai put her hands on her cocked hips, wearing a similar grin now. "I didn't hear _you_ complaining when y-"

She didn't have to finish the sentence anyway. Both of them knew what she had been about to say, and both of them couldn't possibly _not_ remember that same scene. Natsuki's face was cold and expressionless in a way that Mai hadn't seen in years.

This time the silence was agony. They stared at one another across the room, and the wall was suddenly back up again, except that this time it was larger than ever. Natsuki turned to leave and Mai all but dove across the room to catch her by the wrist before she could disappear back down the stairs.

Natsuki slapped the redhead's hand away, but a second took its place. The picture fell to the floor with a dull thud, thankfully on its frame, and toppled over facedown. Mai was too busy trying to wrestle two wayward forearms into her own grasp to worry about that now.

"Let go of me," barked Natsuki, and the sudden break in the silence shocked the both of them so much that they both froze.

"Please, Natsuki," implored the redhead in as soft and humble a tone as she could muster. "Please, I didn't mean to say…"

"Of course you did, you idiot!" Mai took another step back, pain on her face. "You're always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, you never think about other people…" Natsuki trailed off into a choked sob. Now who the hell did she sound like? Had she really said something like that? It was like some bizarre, twisted dream.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Natsuki, I swear, I just…" Just what? Just couldn't keep her stupid tongue still?

No, Mai realised, it was her fault after all. She was acting like a lovesick schoolgirl again, how stupid of her. She couldn't get that heady scent of lilac out of her head, the feel of jet-black hair soft as silk wafting against her face and chest, or the subtle, sweet taste she had relished once, no, _twice_ now.

No, that wasn't it either. It had been after that, after everything, after she had lain in bed almost comatose, exhausted but impossibly awake, unable to sleep even a wink after what had happened. It was the feeling of that warm, soft body next to hers that wouldn't get out of her head. It was that feeling which drove her lips to move and her voice to speak, and Mai knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was the stupidest thing she had ever said in her life just as surely as she knew she couldn't stop herself from saying it:

"I love you."

Then all hell broke loose.


	9. Chapter 9 : Interference

The glass ceiling exploded inward with a deafening crash, raining down razor-edged splinters on the wooden floor below. A torrent of dry, baked air roared in through the open roof, tossing paper and glass fragments and knocking over the stacks of boxes, scorching the wooden rafters a charred black.

Mai looked up, face into the scalding hurricane, though it could do her no harm. Overhead hung a bulbous shape, like a deformed, tailless hammerhead shark, two giant egg-shaped pods on the stumps of severed fins and similar, smaller objects on the sides of its iconic head. Engines, downward-pitched, throwing out so much pressure that Mai felt her feet slipping on the wooden floor from a good ten or fifteen metres away.

"What the fuck is that thing," yelled Natsuki, but it was lost in the howl of the jets.

The flat rear wall of the craft hinged up and out, revealing a series of metal rails built onto the smooth black inner surface. A small device like an overhead winch truck slid out along one rail and stopped, a thick black cable trailing loosely back into the interior of the aircraft. Out jumped a thickly armoured figure in a black combat suit.

First came a pair of knee-length heavy-duty black boots that hit the wooden floor with a resounding thud. The figure itself from the calves up was covered in thick padding, giving a slightly overweight appearance, panels of material wrapped around the body in sections like foam cladding round a network of pipes, all in the same dark matte grey. Around its waist was a sturdy black belt, no visible catch, laden with a single row of uniform rectangular pouches. The only other prominent feature was the helmet; jet black and bulbous, face obscured by a thick mask with a circular grille vent around mouth level and one luminescent green eyehole, the other instead a blunt cone of technological hardware protruding several centimetres from the face.

It was carrying in both hands what was undeniably an automatic shotgun.

Mai was already turning to run back toward the staircase back to the apartment when the first shot came. Thankfully, it was Natsuki who fired first. A sharp splinter of blue light ricocheted off the muzzle of the unknown figure's weapon, jarring it up and to one side.

There was an impossibly loud boom, and then everything went silent. Mai twisted as she pitched forward, her equilibrium scrambled by the sheer noise. A shower of hot pellets chewed a wide gash into one wall and blew out the adjacent window.

Everything was ringing. She scrambled to find her footing and just managed to summon up a protective barrier before the second shot belched forth, scattering shrapnel wildly about the room. The figure fired again, and again.

A flurry of blue slivers arrowed into the figure's left shoulder, leaving softly steaming gouges in the thick armour cladding. Natsuki hit feet-first with all the force of a small truck, knocking the armoured figure end over end across the room. She ducked her head down and somersaulted through the manoeuvre as a spray of bullets raced across the floor a hair's breadth behind her. Her shoulder hit the floor first, turning her tumbling into a sliding roll that brought her to the far wall on her back, upside-down, both weapons now drawn and trained up towards the new skylight. A second figure was already careening down the cable towards them, hefting a compact black submachine gun in one hand as it clutched the line with the other.

Two more followed but seconds behind, both focused on other problems. They didn't wait for their own boots to reach wooden floor before opening fire. Lead chewed into the floor and across the wall in a scattered pattern, tearing the stacked cardboard boxes into paper shreds and spilling their shattered contents about the room in pieces. One window went, then another. Several shots pinged against the metal staircase.

One bullet caught Mai in the hip, throwing her sideways like a well-swung bat to her side. The rest was a blur.

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Mai felt a searing bolt of pain in her left hip. It was almost as if someone had cut through the skin and stuck a red-hot metal plug into the gap. Which, she supposed, was technically accurate.

Being shot was not an enjoyable experience in any way, she noted. She would have to avoid it in future.

"Mai!" There was a sudden pressure about her upper region. Mai had to blink several times against the blinding sunlight in her eyes and the pain running in her veins before sight resolved itself from the blurred mess it had become. She found herself on her backside on the bare wooden floor, propped up against a wall, blood oozing out of the wound in her side and forming a slowly growing puddle beneath her. It was cold, but something soft was wrapped loosely around her, most likely a towel.

Natsuki drew back quickly, with an expression that completely betrayed the deep concern that threatened to overcome her. She swiped away the trailing moisture from the redhead's cheeks with the back of two fingers, a touch that lingered slightly longer than it should have.

"Shit," she cursed, biting her lip. "For a minute there you had me worried, you _bitch_."

"Excuse me," Mai pouted. A finger in her breastbone silenced any further comments.

"You got shot in the side, Tokiha. I watched you fly like a beanbag. I have a right to be a little perturbed by something like that.

Mai could only chuckle. "Must have looked pretty silly. Never could jump very far by myself."

"Only because you'd give yourself a black eye," retorted Natsuki, poking the redhead's chest again. She tried to hold the self-conscious humour on her face, but her eyes refused to stop watering.

"What?" Mai blinked. "What is it? I'm not dead, am I?"

What happened next was no fault on either of them. At first it had been simply an instinctive release of emotion, the sudden surge of anxiety that rushed around Natsuki's brain overwhelmed her momentarily and urged her body into motion before she knew what it was doing. Their lips met for a moment or two, urgent, but unyielding. A tension she hadn't even been aware of came rushing out all at once, like a cistern full of crippling emotion being flushed away. It broke away after a moment's pause and the two of them were left staring dumbly at one another with a shared expression of relief, Mai's tinted by a faint pink across her cheeks. As if that were the end of it.

"Don't look at me like that. You know what…"

Natsuki startled to find her hand now against the other woman's head, cupped behind one delicate ear. She couldn't stop herself if she tried, and she certainly wasn't trying. She kissed Mai hard and furious, but adrenaline and shock quickly gave way altogether. Soon she was kissing just for the sake of the contact, and it was wonderful. Her heart had stopped pounding like an over-stimulated squirrel and her head wasn't spinning any more.

They separated much more slowly, almost reluctantly, lips parted slightly. Moisture stretched across the gap for just a second, as if trying to hold them together. Natsuki felt rational thought slipping away from her like a dream evaporating in the daylight. She slid her arms completely round the redheaded woman's body, heedless of the towel that was now coming loose again. They kissed a third time, neither quite sure who had started it, much more slowly and gently than the first two, inching forward experimentally with eyes half-lidded until their noses touched and then tipped aside. Head twisted slightly, Mai uttered only a soft breath of a sigh before her mouth was suddenly too busy to do anything else.

Again, they parted. This time, the dark-haired woman leaned back onto her ankles, giving them at least an arm's length between them. Mai opened her mouth to protest as a palm cupped softly at her cheek and found no words to say stop. The first kiss had abruptly sent all the years of mental blocks and self-assured reasoning crumbling away like a pile of leaves in a strong wind. The second had set her on fire somewhere deep inside, a sensation she hadn't felt in a long time indeed.

"So…"

Mai was still lost to that lingering burn deep within, warm and slow, like a fiery blanket wrapped around her insides. She almost missed what was said.

"Sorry," she answered, blinking off the hormone-induced haze and trying to stifle her blushing. "What was that?"

"A hotel," Natsuki repeated, not hiding her own reddened cheeks. "We're going to have to find a hotel."

"Oh." Mai giggled self-consciously, rubbing a hand to the back of her head. "I guess we are."

"Erm…" Natsuki scrambled for something valid. Her head was suddenly empty. For all of the excuse, the arguments and apologies she'd worked on in the back of her mind for who knew how long, when the moment came, nothing seemed quite the right thing to say. "I…just glad you're okay."

Mai nodded quietly, her gaze falling to her injured hip. The shallow wound was already sealing itself up before her eyes, and a small lump of softly glowing metal sat like a squashed egg on the wooden floor, a patch of charred blackness surrounding it. The redhead blinked. "Wow. Okay, that's new."

"What's new?"

"I can melt bullets," chirped Mai enthusiastically, with that stupid little feline grin on her face again. "Bullet-proof Mai!"

Natsuki gave a sigh half relief and half exasperation. "Idiot."

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It was midday, or thereabouts, judging solely from the position of the sun in the sky, and all was not well. Then again, that was to be expected.

Whoever those strange men were, they weren't very good shots. Not that it would have mattered if they had been when they were trying to chase down an android and two not quite humans.

In any case, none of that was important any more, as Nina was rapidly discovering. The mechanical woman had been leading the two of them through the fairly deserted park behind the hotel at a truly frightening speed with several ominously black, unmarked cars in close pursuit. Every now and then, an innocent plant would meet a rather unpleasant end in a burst of hot lead. Contrary to common sense, which would usually dictate that running around in public shooting randomly would be a bad idea, those mysterious men with the automatic weapons were very keen on using them given the slightest encouragement. The only way to tell if they were gaining any ground on the strange men was a brief moment of quiet between barrages.

Nina felt like her lungs were trying to escape through her throat and her heart seemed just about ready to explode inside her ribcage. Every time one foot hit the ground again it sent a tremor right through her body all the way to her ears, which were already ringing so loudly that hearing even the gunshots was getting difficult. Thankfully, the android woman had offered no further instructions, and Arika had stopped screaming several minutes earlier. Just run. Run and run and keep running. Run till your legs fall apart. And in the end, it was futile.

Stay on the ground, and they'd eventually be caught. Take to the air and they'd still be caught, if not simply shot down on sight. Miyu had very briefly mentioned a defence system of some kind, and Nina decided she really didn't want to find out what it did.

And she ran. She threw herself forward onto each foot with all her strength just to keep going. How big was this stupid park anyway? No time to look around to see where the other two had gotten to, not that she could see much at all past the tears in her eyes, now that breath of fire shooting up and down her spine every time she took another step. She never saw the cliff.

Before she knew what was going on, Nina was barely an arm's length away from the edge of the world, looking out over the ocean far below. Only a short metal barrier marked the precipice, nowhere near tall enough to stop her now. Her knees collided with the corrugated metal sheeting with a horrible crack that made her whole body tingle, and over she went headfirst past the barrier. Nosedived over the edge of the cliff, a face-full of cold sea air, opal blue filled her vision. And then…

…and then, something really _weird_ happened.

Time melted. Reality collapsed on itself and sucked her in along with it. Darkness became light, then infinity. The universe undulated around her like a giant bowlful of jelly during an earthquake. Something went pop.

Nina hit the ground nose-first, and yelped as pain erupted across her face. The rest of her body followed obediently as gravity took hold and she landed on her belly on cold concrete with a weak thump.

She lay there for a good long while, curled up on her side with both hands over her face. Perhaps just to make sure that the universe wasn't going to do anything else really…weird. Just what it was that had happened was still beyond her. Perhaps that was for the best. She finally looked up.

They weren't coming for her any more. Those strange men with the guns were gone. The park was gone too. It was dark, and there was concrete beneath her, reassuringly solid. Her vision was still a little hazy from the running, from the pain, from that strange trip through the universe. Arika was gone. The android was gone.

Everything. Everything was gone.

Nina curled herself up into a ball, arms wrapped around her knees tight to her chest, head down, trying not to hyperventilate. Her heart gradually stopped hammering away in her chest like a demented hummingbird, and her diaphragm relaxed. Her thighs were starting to cramp now, but it didn't matter.

Eventually, she passed out.

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Nina woke up again some indeterminable time later with the worst headache she had ever experienced and a horrible sensation in the back of her mind, like something really bad had just happened but she couldn't quite say what. Before she could really give it much thought, Arika landed on top of her.

They were safe. It was late evening. An apartment. Arika was wearing a short green dress. Miyu appeared to have disappeared again. A television played quietly to itself in one corner of the small, cheaply furnished room.

"Where," Nina began, cut off again. She reached up to put her hands on the redhead's shoulders and gently pushed her back far enough to give herself a little breathing room. "Where is this," she repeated.

Arika kissed her again anyway before replying, "I'm not sure. Miyu brought us here." Her mouth moved silently for a moment, and then closed again. She turned and settled herself onto the bed beside Nina with a hand in her lap; the other invariably reached out to run the tips of her fingers up and down along Nina's arm. "You were asleep for a long time," she muttered at last. "You're okay now, aren't you?"

"Of course," Nina insisted. She turned her attention to the wall as her face became hot.

"Good."

Nina blinked. The tone of Arika's voice wasn't as energetic or cheerful as usual. The redhead was staring down at the floor while her fingers played over Nina's skin with an absent-minded lightness. Her head bowed in silent contemplation, eyes on the grey stone floor under her feet, the normally tightly bound mass of orange-red hair fell down in a thick sheet, obscuring Arika's face.

"A…Arika?" Nina levered herself up on one hand and reached up to brush that hair aside with the back of her fingers. Her nails whispered across the redhead's cheek. "Arika," she repeated more firmly.

"Mmm," replied Arika absently.

"Is there something wrong?"

Arika turned slowly toward her, eyes still unfocused. Nina met her gaze as her palm touched the redheaded girl's cheek. For a moment, something uncomfortable passed between them, and was gone in an instant.

"I guess I just…" she began, trailed off, fell silent once more and averted her gaze. Nina, rather surprisingly, cupped her partner's cheek and turned the girl's face back to her, until their eyes were level once again. She felt the heat under her palm, Arika's face turning a soft shade of pink. "I just…"

"I'm sorry."

Arika blinked, confusion reading clearly on her face.

"Fo…why?"

"For not saying it when I should have," replied Nina with the best resentful smile she could manage, given that her face felt like it was on fire from her hair to her collarbone. Arika only gave a soft, half-hearted whimper of an answer, and put her arms loosely around the dark-haired girl's neck. She buried her face into the edge of Nina's shoulder and breathed heavily.

"I know it's stupid," Arika mumbled after a while. Her face was still pressed against the other girl's shoulder region, roughly, though she had shifted her head several times over the course of some minutes and now her chin was just resting above the edge of Nina's breast. She closed her eyes again and rubbed her cheek against that smooth skin, clutching slightly tighter around Nina's neck. "I don't even know why, I just suddenly…I guess it just struck me all at once. I got so scared."

Nina put her arms around the redhead's shoulders and rested her cheek against the top of Arika's head, her nose buried into that thick red-orange hair; she remained silent.

"I just…didn't have time to really stop and think about it before…I'm not sure I like this place. It's not safe here, for either of us." She paused. "For you."

"I'm just as strong as you," Nina argued, briefly wondering why.

Arika put a hand to her chest in a fist. "I don't care," she stuttered. "I can't stop thinking about what might happen if they find us again. I don't want to lose you…"

At something of a loss for words, Nina improvised with whatever she could think of. Her hand moved back to Arika's cheek, gently tipping the redhead's face up to look her in the eye again. She couldn't bring herself to give the kind of reassuring smile she had seen so many times, but she could feel her face glowing red well enough. Sapphire eyes sparkled with moisture.

"Ni…Nina…" the words escaped her lips. A shiver up her spine.

"I love you."

Arika closed her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek. Her lips were caught before she could show a smile. Her hands gripped tighter around Nina's neck, and she kissed back with a passion.

"Ni-na…"

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It was dark, it was hot, and it was raining. It was dark because it was insanely early in the morning, somewhere between midnight and what was referred to mainly by the military as "stupid o' clock." Not a trace of sunlight to be seen; not to the west out across the roiling ocean waves that hissed as they swept up and down the beach like the breathing of a giant snake. Not landward, over the ragged mountain range that lurched up away from the coastline, a giant row of serpent's fangs piercing up out of the sea. The forest was silent in the black of night, not a bird or insect to be heard, only the rustle of wind and the incessant hissing of torrential rain through the ancient treetops.

It was hot because it was late summer and the island was in a sub-tropical weather zone a good deal south of mainland Japan. The forest floor was mostly a thick carpet of detritus, primarily dead leaves and decaying plant life. The air was much warmer and wetter here, south past the tip of Kyūshū Island, days from any real civilisation in the wilderness of one of the smaller China Sea islands. A well kept, though seldom used roadway curved around the sheer concrete wall that had been built up on the ocean's edge and wound its way right around the island, serving as sole connection between the commercial harbour on the side closer the mainland and the small village nestled in the depths of the forest on the ocean-bound shore.

It was raining because, well, nature was just a bitch like that.

The sky was an infinite plain of featureless black, dark clouds packed into a thick layer that blanketed the earth in every direction for as far as the eye could see, blotting out the vast starscape beyond. Like an ocean of black, rolling waves of cloud mirrored the treacherous waters below. Flickers of blinding light crackled and spat, racing across the sky like wild animals; momentary bursts of brightness that cast horrible shadows through the trees below. Thunder boomed in the distance like the footfalls of a crazed dancing giant. The rain was hissing down in thick sheets, drenching everything, turning the forest floor into a disgusting sludge, flooding the road in several places so deep that passage would be impossible, misting up the air like a thick fog until visibility was all but nil.

Midori put her face to the ground and tugged the hood of her cape up tight over her head again as another wave of rain came over her, hammering into her back through the thick waterproof material and turning the ground on which she lay into a churning swamp. She had probably picked the single worst spot from which to observe; facedown on the bare forest floor a hundred metres or so up the side of a hill. On the other hand, they'd have even less chance of ever spotting her up here, where the brown-and-green mottled cape blended with the background so perfectly, disguising her as part of the dense undergrowth. When the worst of the torrent had passed and the rain was easing off again, she raised the binoculars to her eye and tracked back on her target.

Down below at the foot of the hill, right down at the water's edge, the artificial cliff that ringed the whole island had been extended a good few hundred metres inland, all solid concrete in a wide semi-circle upon which stood roughly a dozen buildings of varying shapes and sizes. Most were straightforward, flat-roofed blocks of the same ugly grey concrete, squat and roughly squared in shape, with few windows, heavy metal doors, ensnared in webs of black piping and cables. There was a water tower on one side of the compound, a narrow three-storey building covered in air-scoops like giant silvery seashells all facing down towards the water, and a high wire fence running all around with a checkpoint at either end of the road through; just a small concrete hut with a wooden barrier. There were no outdoor lights, and no signs of life.

Beyond the southern point, nestled in a steep natural cove surrounded by towering mountain on all three sides, was another artificial compound a good deal bigger than the village. A rectangular section had been cut out of the beach and up through the coastal edge, lined with thick concrete walls, deepened down until it could comfortably dock any ship of reasonable size. Beside the wet dock was a large two-storey building that defied identification, being simply utilitarian and formless, and separate by a hundred metres or so across the road was a small hangar. The fence around the whole compound was two layers thick, with a deep trench in the intervening space, and high-rise metal frame towers at regular intervals around the perimeter.

"Piece of shit." Midori fiddled with the binoculars some more. Damn but if they hadn't tried their hardest to make the things impossible to use. She had almost considered actually reading the handbook, but on reflection it had probably been better not to. Time was a luxury she could not afford to waste.

The world became green, and Midori grinned. At least the low-light function worked.

What she saw was definitely a military ship sitting in the dock, tethered in place by several thick cables along one side. Probably too tall for a frigate according to the recognition patterns she had programmed into her PDA. Just over two hundred metres bow to stern and from the waterline to the deck had to be at least ten, perhaps twenty at the most. It was difficult to see just how wide it was being at such a horrid angle, but the deck was easily visible. At first sight, the top deck was mostly a single flat rectangular plane that covered the entire hull. Halfway along the starboard side sat a block shaped tower, like a thick grey slab bolted to the deck on its end, adorned with all manner of pipes, cables, aerials and antennas of various shapes and sizes. A single row of windows stretched right around the upper quarter of the tower, tinted glass revealing nothing in the feeble morning light. What must have been a radar dish perched atop the tower on its own extended pylon, spinning constantly, along with several other bits of technological paraphernalia cluttering up the drab metal roof.

It was easy to see, comparatively small stature aside, that it was certainly no conventional aircraft carrier. At either fore corner, stretching out a short ways past the prow itself, a small platform not more than a few metres across supporting what looked suspiciously like an upright oil drum painted a lacklustre off-white, set into a pivoting cradle. Two more flanked the rear of the ship, and a fifth was set on a similar platform on the side opposite the tower. Only a single track ran the length of the ship; a precisely straight path from bow to stern marked out with two white lines and a central furrow cut into the metal, looking barely wide enough to accommodate most light aircraft. The rest of the space was taken up by six large squares cut into the deck set with concentric rings of slowly pulsing green lights, and two large rectangular blocks each the size of a small truck, topped off by a mosaic of uniform white square caps. Presumably missile tubes.

Two of the landing bays, those square sections of deck with what must have been landing lights on them, were empty. One was missing completely, just a square gap in the deck leading down into the dark unknown, or more likely, the hangar deck. The other two were currently occupied by a most peculiar aerial vehicle Midori had definitely never seen before. It looked like some sort of bizarre mutant hammerhead shark at first, just the front half, fins and eyes alike removed and replaced by omni-directional engine pods, larger in the back than up front. Instead of obeying normal aircraft convention, the upper surface was flat, while below the craft started off thin and sloped smoothly downward to become a bulbous oval shape at the back, as if someone had turned the vehicle upside-down. The design left it looking dangerously over-balanced, but it rested quite comfortably on four fat, stumpy hydraulic legs that extended from the floor of the cargo section, with only two skinny, retractable poles to keep it balanced in front. A long darkened panel set into the front ventral section of the craft presumably served as a cockpit, directing a pilot's attention forward and down instead of upward. The only visible armament was a small rotary cannon affixed via a circular a-frame turret under the left hand "wing" that looked completely out of place, as if it had been slapped on as an afterthought.

The recognition program in Midori's PDA drew a blank. She cursed under her breath, wary of being too verbose lest she end up with a mouthful of muddy rainwater. Not that it mattered anyway; she was already soaked through underneath the cape, wet clothing adhering to her skin like paper in the hot, muggy tropical air.

She brought one hand up to her head while the other held the binoculars trained on her target. Wrapped around her left ear like a small black plastic crescent moon was a headset communication device; a blunt conical plug inserted into her ear and a small, wire-thin retractable antenna stood up through Midori's soaking hair along the side of her head. Midori pressed two fingers to the device and got a quiet blip in reply.

"Testing," she muttered in a very low voice, almost inaudible. Her own words echoed back faintly in her ear from the stick-thin microphone arm that practically adhered to her face, curving down from her ear to just below the corner of her mouth. "Can you hear me out there?" The earpiece gave a hissing crackling noise for a moment, and then a voice warbled through, broken and distorted but recognisable.

"Your signal is coming through one hundred percent. Go ahead."

"You'd better be recording this." There was a short pause before the reply.

"Go ahead."

Midori breathed deeply. "Okay, I've been here about four hours by now, no signs of activity on the ground. Got a ship in dock, looks like a Marine carrier. Can't get a good look but it doesn't look like there's a flag or any insignia anywhere." Her fingers fumbled over the top of the binoculars for a moment, searching over several rows of small buttons until she found the right one. "Okay, I'm uploading the feed to you right now. Something really top secret going on here and I have no idea what those things are." There was a brief pause, processing lag, before the reply came.

"Experimental aircraft for the military. Could this be a NATO taskforce? Perhaps the JASDF are buying foreign equipment as well now?"

"It could be _them_."

"It would probably be wisest not to jump to costly conclusions."

Midori snorted derisively.

"If you are unable to give a positive identification, perhaps measures should be taken to obtain more information before casting ungrounded assumptions."

Midori sighed reluctantly. "I suppose you're right. There are forces at work here that go beyond the District." The thought sent a shiver down her spine. "Whatever's going on here involves people within the UN armed forces. There aren't many people who even know about the project with that kind of influence."

"There may be one or two I can identify, at that…"

Midori interrupted with a silencing hiss. Through the incessant roar of the rain and the crackling of thunder overhead came another noise, one that was most definitely artificial. At first, it was the sound of a distant jackhammer, a clamour of rapid-fire bangs that melted into a single constant roar. The noise hammered into Midori's skull like a bad headache as it approached from somewhere behind her, rushing over the nearest hill like the droning buzz of an angry swarm of wasps, louder and louder with every passing second. Soon enough, it was practically on top of her, so intense that it made her ears hurt.

It swooped overhead like a gigantic bird of prey diving on an unsuspecting meal, with the droning roar of its engines trailing behind. As soon as the overpressure lessened to a bearable degree, Midori stuck her head up again and focused the night-vision binoculars to the sky.

The strange craft looked, for all intents and purposes, almost identical to those odd vehicles that sat on the carrier now inert, all but for a few small cosmetic differences. Where the others were all a uniform shade of dull silver-grey, this one was jet black, so dark that it was difficult to keep track of even with night-vision to aid feeble human eyes. The only way to really spot the thing as it flew over the island was the blindingly hot wake it churned into the turbulent air, bending the tops of trees and throwing up huge clouds of dead leaves from the forest floor. It was moving at considerable speed across the canopy, barely metres above the trees, bobbing and weaving lazily along its flight path much like a bird, twitching its way from side to side to stay on course. With the very manner in which it moved, swerving away from any particularly high tree in its path or the constant minor course corrections, it was easy to forget the thing was artificial; it moved almost like an oversized bird.

The other striking difference between the other aircraft and this one individual was the engines, or what Midori assumed were engines. They could have been anything really; they looked like four short, fat, segmented tubes, two smaller at the front and larger ones at the back, which blended seamlessly into the strangely shaped fuselage, furthering the organic appearance of the thing. Each one was curved to a slight bulb at the end, forming a circular aperture from whence came belching forth high-speed jets of scorching hot air. Each aperture could be widened or constricted by flexing the walls of the bulbous segment, resulting in all kinds of shapes no doubt to influence the flow of exhaust in various ways, demonstrated as the craft narrowly avoided a collision with a tall treetop by gliding round in a smooth diagonal drift.

Midori watched in silence as the aircraft descended on the awaiting carrier, nose dangerously low, not even bothering to slow its approach. The deck crew were nowhere to be seen at that point, but there was a small cluster of people standing by the tower, watching the incoming craft. A smudge of dark lime-greenish shapes resolved into crystal clarity; five bodies, all tall enough and muscular enough to be military stereotypes, following on in a loose arrow formation. They were led by a surprisingly short figure in what looked like a Hawaiian shirt and loose shorts, a thick mop of lightly coloured hair set in an unruly spiked mess.

That short, pointed nose and narrow eyebrows that gave a slender, boyish face a hint of devilish mischief were all too familiar even at a glance. Scarlet gaze turned a misty pale green-grey from the low light binoculars drifted leisurely skyward. As always, the first expression to grace the young boy's lips was a playful grin, obscuring a most sinister smirk behind the façade of youthful innocence.

The incoming aerial craft lurched downward, dropping toward the deck as if its strings had just been cut. It pitched violently backward, nose rising almost to forty degrees as its fore engines flared in wide, hot jets of flame. The short rear pneumatic feet expressed from its rearward underbelly and hit the deck plating, pivoting the aircraft forward to rest horizontal. Two more feet spread out from beneath, short, powerful suspension stocks with wide pads, emerging from the forward edge of its lower body instead of the ungainly spindle legs of the other craft. As it settled, the lack of blatantly artificial gear maintained the organic appearance even further, regardless of how overbalanced it looked at first glance, as if ready to topple forwards at any moment. The rear door pivoted upward, and then folded in on itself concertina style in three neat sections.

The young boy with the well-armed and military trained entourage spared no glance about the carrier or its surroundings as he stepped up into the craft. The grunts shuffled in after him, single file, and the door quickly flicked itself shut.

A string of obscenities hissed from Midori's lips. "That little…"

"What's wrong?"

"It's him," she growled into the microphone. "He's here."

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At a time far too early to be considered sane, the sun was rising once again over the city of Tokyo. It was a truly incredible sight; the rays of blinding golden light towering skyward from the horizon, illuminating the landscape in sharp relief. The city was a playground of shadow and light, sparkling gold and deepest black, twisting and turning, a shifting battle in slow motion as the sun crawled higher and higher in the early morning sky. Away in the distance was the city centre, a gathering of monoliths vast and ancient, rising from the cluttered sprawl of insignificant armies asleep at their feet, indomitable towers of artificiality standing dark and defiant against the abrasive sunlight.

Mai watched in silence, half-awake and caught entranced by the spectacular display. Her eyes filled with fire, drinking in the incredible light like a black hole sucking down a star. Violet turned slowly to crimson, a deep burnished golden orange, then yellow as the sun itself. Then white, a vibrant glow of inner luminescence. At last, she blinked against the harsh sunrise, and the dazzling light show suddenly became a headache-inducing mess of greens and blues on the back of her eyelids. She brought a hand to her face to shield the sunlight pouring in through the wide café window and lowered her eyes to the table in front of her, trying to banish the annoyingly vivid display of neon colour assaulting her vision.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, she felt dizzy. Colour, so sharp and clear it was almost blinding, blossomed behind her eyes. The golden-yellow glare of sunlight streaming down through the tall buildings surrounding the café exploded, swept away the deep morning shadows with all the intensity of midday sun. Light spots swarming in her vision faded away, replaced by impossibly vibrant colour, as if someone had switched all the world's contrast filters all the way up. A dim, faded indigo sky turned a loud sapphire blue; the greyish concrete, speckled with golden sunlight, became a perfect white; the burnished bronze tablecloth in front of her shone like a miniature sun.

Then someone walked past the café window and Mai's world exploded all over again. She could make out every detail, every millimetre of cloth, every tiny flake of skin on the man's body as he strolled obliviously past. Even the murky brown-grey of his suit was so bold, so clear, so powerful that it looked every bit as bright as the blazing tablecloth. But beyond that, in some way she couldn't quite grasp, Mai saw colours. Colours she couldn't even name, a hazy glow that was beyond red, a shimmer of purple that defied explanation, emanating from that unsuspecting human body like an oversized firefly.

She blinked.

Slowly, softly, the world returned to normal, but only if she concentrated. The insane colours dimmed to nothing and light crept back to where it was meant to be, away from her sensitive eyes, away from the shadows and gloom around the buildings. Compared to the headache-inducing image she had just received, Mai found the high contrast glare of the rising sun almost relaxing.

Her eyes were watering, she noticed, and reached for a napkin. Only then did it fully occur to her that that arm was still stuck in place, wedged between the back of the booth seating and a surprisingly heavy, dark-haired woman. Natsuki snorted loudly in her sleep as she was shoved forwards, shifting against the redhead's side with an incoherent mumble.

Mai felt a smile coming on. A good one. She hadn't felt that in quite a while now, not with the recent chaos in her life, having to balance work, fighting _and_ looking after an incredibly demanding young girl. She threw the discontent aside and reached up her free hand to brush along the side of Natsuki's shoulder with a finger.

"Yukariko's going to eat you for breakfast if you don't get up soon," she told the sleeping woman in a half-whispered voice. It was something of a struggle not to laugh.

Natsuki shot upright in a second, still semi-conscious, eyes unfocused, and yelped something completely incoherent in horrendously garbled English. Then she blinked. Someone was laughing somewhere behind her and she had a good idea who it was.

"Bitch," she barked at the redhead, and punched her in the arm. "You're an evil person, Tokiha."

Mai ignored her and kept on laughing, rubbing her upper arm with one hand. "You're just so easy to tease, Natsuki," she breathed between gasps. "It's not my fault it's funny!" The hiccupping giggles eventually boiled down to a snicker, while Natsuki focused her attention resolutely on the tablecloth in front of her, fuming silently.

"You're evil," she insisted, pouting in a way only she knew how. Mai draped an arm over her shoulders again and leaned in close, cheek almost touching Natsuki's ear.

"You really never change, Kuga, not in ten years." She let out a long sigh and shook her head, trying to calm herself down again. Her spare hand landed limply on the table next to five empty cups of coffee and a plate smeared with cheese sauce and thinly scattered with crumbs of pasta.

"Neither do you," replied the dark-haired woman in an oddly reminiscent tone of voice. She brought a hand up and caught Mai's hand on the table, fingers intertwined slowly. "Thank you."

Mai blinked. "For what?"

"For being the only predictable thing around."

The redhead beamed back at her, even if the statement had brought an awkward redness to her cheek. "My job," she stated proudly, and squeezed Natsuki's hand in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.

"E…excuse me…"

Both women looked up quickly at the intruding voice. A waitress was standing at the end of their table; a frightfully ordinary yet attractive young girl just a head shorter than either of them, in the universally coveted maid's outfit, a clash of black-white monochrome and splashes of cool blue and bright yellow.

Natsuki averted her gaze, trying to hide the sudden flush in her cheeks with the usual deeply annoyed expression. Mai refused to let go of her hand, or remove herself from her partner's physical presence. The situation was an oddly familiar one, and infuriating, though strangely enjoyable.

"Is there something wrong," asked the redhead in reply, putting on her most cheerful face. Hiding her own embarrassment was something she'd had years of practice at.

"Well…" The waitress shuffled her feet and looked awkwardly back toward the kitchen where several others of her fellow staff were waiting, trying to look casual. "It's just," she stuttered, "…erm…how long did…I mean…" For a brief while, she said nothing at all, just looking flustered and uncomfortable. "Would…would you like to order something," she offered at last, looking rather pathetic.

Mai giggled, which only made the poor girl jump. "I think we'd like to see the breakfast menu, if that's alright? What do you say?" She gave Natsuki's shoulder a nudge. The dark-haired woman responded with a dismissive grunt, refusing to face either of them.

The waitress bowed deeply, _very_ deeply, until Mai could see a vast window of cleavage as the front of the dress fell open slightly. She made a highly suggestive noise and couldn't hold in the laughter as the poor young girl retreated with a flustered squeak.

"You love doing that, don't you," muttered Natsuki, irate. "You're going to get thrown out for sexual harassment if you keep that up."

"Oh, don't be silly. I only do it because she's so obviously attracted to you."

Natsuki span round to face her and fixed her with an angry glare. "What are you talking about," she barked. "Stop making up…"

"I'm _not_," Mai interrupted, her smile fading slowly. "You really didn't notice?"

Natsuki blinked, halted mid-protest.

"You didn't notice the way she keeps looking at you whenever she comes over here?" Mai slid her arm from around her partner's shoulders and reached out over the table to catch a little plastic spoon between her fingers, flicking it around in little circles. "She _likes_ you, Natsuki," she sang, a smug grin overtaking her features. "She's just like little Yumika, remember?"

"Yumika was _gay_," Natsuki protested. The crimson in her cheeks immediately darkened.

"They were _all_ gay, and so were you," Mai pointed out in her annoying 'I know what I'm talking about' voice. "Except the ones who were just there for the money. I swear, that place must have just been…just…built out of pure…gayness. And it made anyone who stayed for too long turn homosexual. Or something."

Natsuki gave her a very odd look.

"What?"

"One of these days, you're going to say something that actually makes sense."

Mai just giggled and slid an arm round Natsuki's waist again, leaning in closer until their shoulders touched. "Well even if she _is_ batting for you…"

"Ex_cuse_ me," protested the dark-haired woman with one eyebrow up and a not too pleased expression. She prodded a finger sharply into Mai's ribs.

"…she can't take you away while I'm here to stop her, can she? So don't worry." Mai beamed down at her in that impossibly cheerful way.

"Somehow," Natsuki sighed lethargically, "that doesn't make me feel better." She stretched both arms up over her head and arched her spine up high, wincing at several dull cracks from her lower back. "In any case, I don't think we should just stay here all day."

Mai cocked her head to one side, looking down at her partner lopsidedly. "Why not," she muttered with obvious resentment.

"That car came back again," Natsuki explained with a tilt of her head towards the window. Mai followed her gaze out across the street to where a forest-green sedan was sitting edged up onto the pavement.

It had been there for almost five hours, not that anyone had taken any particular notice. It was a perfectly ordinary car; four doors, a design that was less than striking in any way, tinted glass in the windshield, two parallel black ridges along the smoothly sloped roof where a rack could be fitted. Double-wipers had been fitted on the front and back, and two small bolt-on washers just above the front bumper to spray water over wide square headlights, denoting a rather active lifestyle. A few patches of dried mud along the sides and splattered around the front wheels. The only occupant was a perfectly ordinary Japanese man with a slightly narrow nose and short-cropped hair, face hidden behind a pair of dark glasses that didn't look out of place at all on a sunny summer morning in Tokyo.

Mai tried not to look directly at him as he took a small black box about the size of a coffee mug from somewhere behind the dashboard and inspected the device for a moment before returning it to its place. She let out a long, heart-felt sigh and rested her chin atop folded arms on the table.

"And I was beginning to like this place, too."

"I'll get the bill," said Natsuki rather redundantly as she slid another credit card from a pocket inside the dark blue jacket she was wearing. "I just hope we don't run out of cards," she continued as an aside, voice hushed. "If we keep this up, it won't matter how rich I am, either they'll trace my card or we'll run out of accounts to use."

Mai rolled her head over to the other side to look up at her sidelong with a bored expression. "We could always just use mine."

"Dummy."

"Hm?" Mai sat up. "Who're you calling dummy," she protested.

"What makes you think they don't have your personal life under surveillance already, idiot?"

The redhead blinked. "Oh. Right." Then she sank back down to her previous position, chin on the tablecloth. "Curse you and your inscrutable logic."

Natsuki left her to her own devices and focused on waving down one of the few passing waitresses. Now that the early hours had passed and the city was coming to life again, the café was starting to get noisy again. The diminutive night shift were quickly becoming inadequate with the sudden influx of customers, and a queue was slowly gathering around the door.

"I just hope Shizuru hasn't been having the same trouble."

"Still blocked," replied Mai automatically. Her voice was oddly distant.

"Damn phone company. Whoever these people are, they've got connections in all the wrong places."

Mai wasn't listening. The man in the green car was moving. He was switching the engine off. Getting out. Reaching inside his jacket.

"Shit…"

"What?"

Mai was on her feet before her brain even had time to process the situation fully. The man was now walking away and leaving the car open behind him.

"Get under the table."

Natsuki looked up at her with an incredulous expression.

"Don't argue, just do it!"

The strange man was taking his glasses off with one hand while the other was full of metal. He tossed them onto the pavement and ran straight across the road, heedless of the traffic, aiming an automatic pistol at something that Mai couldn't see.

Someone screamed.

Mai felt the air thicken around her as it happened again. Her vision exploded into vibrant colour. The man with the gun became crystal-sharp beyond the limits of human eyesight, wreathed in a thin bubble of deep red-orange haze like steam. For a moment, the metal of the pistol gleamed brightly in the morning sun. He took aim…

The window of the café exploded outwards with an ear-splitting bang, throwing a shower of razor shards out into the road. The man held an arm up over his face and turned away from the sudden onslaught.

"Fuck!"

Mai turned her head briefly back to her partner. "Stay down," she yelled at the dark-haired woman crouched under the table. Her lavender eyes flickered brightly. Steam hissed from her nostrils as she panted, open-mouthed. Whatever it was, it was taking hold. Hard.

A wild combination of fear and confusion and excitement set Natsuki's heart racing and her senses on overload. She clutched her fingers tight around her weapons as they materialised obediently in her hands. Heat radiated in waves from the redheaded woman now standing atop the cluttered table. The café patrons were all yelling at one another and scrambling back and forth, or cowering under tables, or trying to see what was happening.

A mysterious figure in a heavy brown cloak walked in front of the blown out café window. The figure ignored a rather irate Mai glaring at the gun-toting man still standing in the middle of the road and turned to the agent himself instead.

A lightning flash of pink shook Mai from her narrow-minded fury. The man with the gun staggered backwards, clutching at his stomach. Blood squirted between his fingers.

"Mai!"

The figure turned. The hood of that thick, dark cloak was completely black inside, obscuring any facial features.

Mai blinked. A hand was tugging urgently at her left leg. She looked down and saw Natsuki's face behind her, mouth agape, yelling something at her.

"Mai, get off the-"

"Tokiha!"

Mai watched wide-eyed as a swarm of writhing pink limbs spewed out from the folds of that thick cloak and started reaching towards her. The hood flew back to reveal an unnervingly familiar face.

"Shiho?"

"Bitch," screamed the pink-haired girl, and leapt towards her. Her hair lunged out like a tangle of angry tentacles.

"Run, idiot!" A sharp cobalt flash sliced across the cloaked girl's flight-path, stopping Shiho in her tracks. Mai shook her head, staggered backwards across the table.

"What…"

Natsuki shoved her right off the table, sending the redhead sprawling on the floor.

"Run!" She fired off across Shiho's nose again.

So Mai ran.

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"Ni-na."

At least they had actual shoes now, so no running around barefoot in the city. Besides the fact that it hurt after very long, it also looked awfully suspicious to the average passer by to see two teenage girls running around with bare feet in the middle of Tokyo.

"Ni-na…"

The black flat-soles made a rhythmic taptaptap on the pavement as they walked briskly along the street, keeping themselves toward the early morning shadows. Arika's soft shoes were more or less silent, but her mouth made up for that by a good margin.

"Nina," she whined for about the tenth time. "Where are we going?"

"We have to get away." Nine kept her head down and her feet moving.

"From what?"

"I don't know, just…just be quiet and walk!"

In the end, they had ditched most of what had been salvaged from the hotel room. A pair of rather baggy blue jeans that didn't quite fit right and a pale yellow short-sleeved blouse fit Arika neatly in with the crowd, with the flip-down shades and the white soft-soled shoes that made her look like any decent fashion-accessory teenage girl. A narrow blue pouch belt sat lopsidedly across her hips, bulging with what little money she had left and whatever else she could stuff into it. The rest, food, map of the city, compass, day ticket for the metro trains, and other assorted items, were all crammed into the smallest olive green backpack that would fit, weighing heavily on Arika's slender young shoulders. A canteen dangled from a clip on the side, whacking her in the back now and again.

"Okay, _why_ are we running?" She was whining. She didn't care; it was definitely a situation worth whining about.

"Because…" Nina hesitated, though she didn't slow down. The thin fabric of a dark aquamarine dress swished around just below her knees. She had wrapped herself up in a light, sea green button-up sweater to keep the sun off her bare shoulders and arms. Her own bag at least meshed a little better with her outfit; an underarm bag in a slightly paler grassy shade of green hanging down against her right hip. She was sweating lightly under the cool dress, so that the back of the skirt tended to cling to the backs of her thighs on occasion. "Look, just trust me, okay?"

Arika tried not to stare at the view of Nina's rear end through the thin fabric and kept walking. "It's not that I don't trust you," she reasoned with the usual pout in her voice. "I just don't really understand why we're running away without telling Miyu where we're going."

"I don't trust that woman," Nina replied quite bluntly. Arika blinked and halted for a moment.

"What…why not?" Then she noticed the dark-haired girl was getting away from her and hurried to catch up again. "I've already told you, she's a friend! She wouldn't be misleading us or anything, I promise."

Nina sighed. "Not everyone can be as openly trusting as you, Arika. I wish I could…"

A terrific BANG tore through the peaceful morning air, sending a flock of pigeons roosting in a nearby tree into a frenzied scramble of wings. Both girls froze in their tracks. Arika felt her heart beating faster already as she turned to identify the source of the offending noise.

"That…what was…"

"Over there!" And just like that, the redhead was dashing away across the street, leaving her companion somewhat bewildered behind her.

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They arrived just in time to see a man in a dark suit collapse to the ground in a puddle of blood. A few random people were beginning to crowd round, despite the gun that now lay not a metre distant on the black ground. Someone yelled for an ambulance. Arika already thought she could just hear sirens in the distance.

They emerged from an alleyway leading back between two small storefront buildings to the next street over. A dark green car was parked right across the alley with one wheel edged up onto the curb, and the driver's door hanging open.

"What's going on?"

Nina shook her head. "Looks like someone was shot, or something?" She sidestepped back past the car and turned to leave when something caught her eye.

"Well that's just weird," Arika postulated aloud. "I mean, what was that man doing with a gun anyway? Is he some kind of police or something?" She held up one finger. "I know! It's like…some sort of television show or something! Maybe they're filming a movie, yeah."

Silence from her partner.

"Um…Nina?" The redhead turned with a mildly worried expression. "Nina? Are you okay?"

"Arika," replied the dark-haired girl very slowly, and pointed to the car. "What is that?"

Sitting on the back seat of the dark green mud-speckled car with the heavy-duty wipers and the multipurpose roof rack was something that looked, in some subconscious way that Nina didn't quite understand, as if it really didn't belong there. A large rectangular arm-bag took up one seat, looking ominous enough all by itself. On the other side was a setup that vaguely resembled a child's safety chair, securely fastened to the seat by a framework of legs that dove between the cushions. Instead of a seat, however, there was a brushed silver metal cube about a hand span across with an assortment of buttons and knobs and switches. Several thin rubberised wires lead to a device fixed to the top of the box that looked oddly like a miniature satellite dish.

"Um…" was Arika's only suggestion.

"That doesn't really look…"

A bleeping sound interrupted Nina mid-sentence. She looked around, momentarily startled, until Arika tapped her on the shoulder and pointed her towards a small black box-like device sitting in a cradle on the panel between the front seats.

A hand-held satellite phone, of course, would explain the dish in the back seat, but not the bag. More worrying…

…it was ringing.

Nina looked around. No one seemed too concerned with two young girls poking their noses around a strange car, for the time being, but the distant flash of police car lights along the road a ways were gradually getting closer.

"We should go, Nina." Arika gave her sleeve a good firm tug. "C'mon, let's just leave it."

She couldn't. Nina was overcome by a feeling she couldn't put into words, as if she was _meant_ to pick up that phone. As though it was for her that it was ringing.

She leaned into the car through the open passenger window, reached down to clutch the phone in her fingers and lifted it out of its cradle. The bleeping cut off with a sharp blip. She brought the thing to the side of her head and took a deep breath.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, Miss Wang," answered a soft, deep voice on the other end.

She didn't know if she wanted to throw the thing away and run or just burst out laughing. This was getting weird.

"Who…" She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. Arika was still clinging to her sleeve with an urgent look on her face.

"When is the president not the president?"

Nina blinked. "What?"

"When is the president," said the androgynous voice patiently, "not the president?"

"Erm…I…" Nina shook her head.

"What's going on, Nina? Who is it?"

Nina put a hand over the mouthpiece and looked back at her redheaded companion with a troubled expression. "I don't know, it…" Her brow furrowed in thought. "I think…"

"You think…?" Arika cocked her head slightly and gave her a decidedly bewildered look. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," said Nina to both of them equally. "When is the president not the president?" Was she really playing a word game with an anonymous caller? And the day had started off so very normal.

The caller chuckled.

Nina pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it, as if it had just spontaneously turned into a banana or some other such bizarre thing. "What the…"

"What what what, what is it?" Arika was now bouncing on her toes impatiently. "What's going on?"

"I don't know…but I'm sure I recognise that voice from somewhere, I know I do." Nina sighed, and took the phone to her ear again. The chuckling had stopped.

"Well?"

"Well what," she replied. "Whoever you are, why won't you answer me?"

"Hm?"

Nina put a hand on her forehead and tried not to get angry. "When is the president not the president?" When the reply came, the amusement in that mysterious voice was dark, sinister, chilling.

"When she's a spy."

The phone clicked.

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In a better light, she might have been an attractive young woman; she was relatively tall for her age, and of such slight build that one might dismiss her at first glance. Her face was as slender as the rest of her, with high cheekbones and a delicate, slightly upturned nose that gave her a demure, refined appearance. She was, from head to toe, a nubile young creature long in limb and in body, whose joints were almost bony and whose more blatantly feminine features had yet to develop past the athletic waif's figure of her youth. Her chest like her face was held high and firm out in front. Had she been so compelled, a seductive posture would look almost natural on her.

But she wasn't.

She stood with her feet a short distance apart, shoulders forward and her head dipped, eyes peeking out from behind sheer curtains of vibrant pinkish hair like a wild animal ready to strike without warning. Thick shadows overlapped across her semi-naked body, obscuring her features, breaking her silhouette like a camouflage pattern to the point that she appeared at least partly insubstantial, as if she wasn't really all there.

The only clothing she wore was a single spiral of fabric that started at her left ankle and ended at her right wrist. It began as a thick-soled sock on her left foot, purest black, slithering up her calf like a snake as it slowly thickened and changed colour. Even the texture was different by the time it reached her hips, a smooth emerald green leather strip a hand span wide that swept once across the backs of her thighs just below her buttocks, and then around her far hip to cross her groin region and continue upward, leaving her with what was inarguably the briefest skirt ever designed. From there it caressed its way up once, twice, thrice around her thorax as it ascended, much narrower strips of wafer thin fabric melting from a soft pink over her abdominal muscles to a pale blue across her lower ribs just under the curve of her breasts. Modesty had not been a primary concern, it seemed, as the strange fabric only barely managed to cover both nipples, each one crowded to the very edge of the diagonally slanted material that curled across her chest as a smooth, flexible opal strip. When it stretched across her shoulder blades and reached her right shoulder at last, it flowed straight out and began a similar coiling path down that arm, a uniform crimson down to her wrist, whereupon it swelled into a fingerless skin-tight glove. The overall effect, between the constantly moving shadows playing across her body and the winding fabric clearly not designed with concealment in mind, was almost migraine inducing in its hypnotic quality, furthering Shiho's passive camouflage by making it almost impossible to focus on her for any period of time without feeling dizzy.

Her hair just made the whole problem worse, of course. She had never cut it, not in the last ten years at least, as far as the eye could judge, for it flowed down her back in a single thick, pink mass to pool on the ground. That is, it would have, had she left it to its own devices. As it was, Shiho had gathered the whole mess up and tied it into four identical tails, condensing into itself so tightly that it formed four thick, curving pillars of solid pink colour. Two in front, two behind, they emerged from the imaginary corners on the top of her head and turned downward sharply. Just past her hips, all four broke apart into dozens of slender pink tendrils, like the tentacles of some bizarre squid creature, and even more disturbingly they seemed to be moving, constantly writhing and wafting, coiling around one another like a nest of vipers. Not a single end touched the ground on which she stood, all upraised around her thighs like a pack of dogs begging after their master.

Her eyes, though, were the worst. A vicious grin twisted her lips upward, displaying a row of stark white teeth all pristinely cleaned and straightened, and drawing attention up to her eyes. Those eyes, burning with a terrifying maniacal glee; they were the eyes of a girl gone utterly and irrevocably insane.

Shiho tossed back her head, her hands upraised towards the sky, eyes wide, and screeched out a demonic laugh.

"Nowhere left to run now, Tokiha!" Her eyes sparkled with insane joy.

"What do you want, Shiho? Why are you after me?"

"Silence," Shiho shrieked. "You know what you have done! You will pay for your crimes!" A lightning flash of pink sent Mai sprawling across the dark, dirty alley floor with a yelp. The concrete cracked under the incredible force of the impact. Mai rolled until her shoulder hit the wall, crouched down low, her fingertips glowing with unnatural orange light.

"Shiho, stop this! _Please_."

"Die!" The pink-haired girl dashed toward her, the writhing tentacles of her hair reaching forward like razor-tipped tentacles.

"Mai!" Cerulean shards peppered the ground in front of Shiho's feet, driving her back a step. Shiho turned her attention to the source of the interference and hissed savagely at the dark-haired woman aiming two large handguns in her direction.

"Stay out of this," she spat. Natsuki answered with another burst of gunfire, sending the crazed girl hopping backwards.

"Mai, get up! Just run! We can't afford to…"

"Die, bitch!" Shiho leapt at her opponent again, reaching out with both hands and all twelve limbs.

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"Fuck!"

"I warned you something like this would happen, but did you listen?"

"I don't want to hear it! I've had just about enough of that smug, superior attitude of yours! If you're so all-powerful and all-knowing, why couldn't you do something about this yourself?"

"There are rules to my job, idiot."

"…fuck it. Okay, fine, whatever."

"Look, what matters here is far more than just the girls themselves, or what they are."

"Hah! You can say that, but if Prometheus' advanced nanotechnology ever got the media's attention there'd be serious trouble. You know what people like Lockheed or Beretta would do with that kind of stuff, not to mention if the FBI ever got their hands on-"

"-Shit, don't even _joke_ about something like that. That'd be pretty much World War Three, except…worse."

"It's already getting to be near enough impossible keeping attention away from the Child project in the States and in Europe and now NATO are poking their noses in over this disappearing fleet business and…what? What's funny?"

"You're not seeing the big picture."

"It doesn't really get much bigger than NATO having cybernetic enhancement technology, and that's assuming they don't figure out what the HiMEs really are."

"Who made the wide-spectrum guidance systems for the JSDF's brand new anti-missile defence network? And who put the GTSD satellites in orbit? And who built the new marine carriers for NATO's Pacific Fleet?"

"…wait…you mean…"

"I'll give you three guesses, but you're only going to need one."

"Shit! Okay, fucking…shit…damn it, whatever it takes, just get them back! _I'll_ deal with Nagi in the mean time. And I suppose only the Prime Minister himself can do anything about BAE right now."

"Good luck."

"…you too."

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Midsummer sun baked the city, but it might as well have been the dead of night in that tiny avenue, dark, cramped, cluttered and dirty. Wedged between two high-rise apartment buildings, all but identical in their utter lack of architectural appeal, dull greyish brown slabs of concrete several dozen storeys high. The walls became cliffs, a sheer vertical face on either side of a depressingly narrow and abysmally dark chasm, rough surfaces that rose up endlessly towards the distant sunlight. There were no windows, no view so desirable as to warrant such extravagance, so the canyon walls were bare rock laser-cut to an impossibly deep trench, sheer and unforgiving. High overhead, eternally far from the dank, cold dirt on the ground, streams of golden sunlight played through the crests of cloud-breaking buildings.

Down here, it was always midnight. The darkness was so thick that it swallowed everything, from the scratched and battered overflowing dumpster behind the restaurant, the ancient collection of abandoned mechanical spare parts left heaped up against the back wall of a bar like a pack of homeless dogs huddled loosely together, even the ground was nearly invisible through the gloom. At either end of the alleyway, sunlight streamed across, illuminating the streets outside, but never did it dare enter and pierce the profound darkness hanging cancerous within.

"You're not the only one with orders." Midori thought her voice sounded much weaker than usual, muffled, swallowed up by the darkness instead of echoing around the narrow alley walls the way it should. She shifted her footing and mentally winced at the horrible feeling that brought as her feet moved through the…whatever it was covering the ground. "You can't seriously expect to get away with something like this."

"Ha!" Shiho cackled, amused if nothing else. Her maniac grin had turned to an expression of leisurely amusement, still that unpredictable fire playing behind her eyes. "Petty words are no threat to me, and neither are you."

A cracking noise brought Midori's focus sharply downward again. Her eyes flicked between the insane creature before her and the concrete ground below with well-practiced ease.

Shiho had merged the ribbon of compressed fabric around her left foot into the ground, sucking up the concrete surface itself like a vacuum. Tendrils of matter swirled and spiralled inward to form a rapidly condensing disk about a hand-span across, a deep crimson glow contained within like molten iron.

"You shouldn't be doing this."

"I'll do what I have to," Shiho snapped at the redhead, her own pink locks flicking irritably about her waist. "Whatever it takes, I swore my life."

Midori ground her teeth together, trying her damnedest to bite back on all the scathing comments that sprang to mind. "Let her _go_, damn it," she insisted. Her fingers brushed anxiously at empty air beside her right hip. "You don't need her! I can find someone else for you…"

"Mai is mine now," hissed the pink haired girl as her dainty hands closed into fists so tight her knuckles turned white. Her hair began to boil, tendrils of her furious essence that coiled and writhed and squirmed their way upward until they hung in the air all about her head lending her an even more menacing appearance. "She'll make a perfect bargaining piece, don't you think?"

Midori replied only with a dismissive grunt. Shiho glared daggers at her. Fingers closed around nothing.

"Then you die!" Shiho let loose a wild screaming laugh as the disk of molten substance coagulating beside her foot split open and out poured a nest of wildly flailing yellow-orange tentacles, each thigh thick, each blazingly hot; molten concrete limbs rushing across the gap between the two women with frightening speed. Midori brought her right hand up across her body in a lightning arc, instantly severing a dozen of the attacking tendrils.

"Let her go," she demanded once more, voice slow and deep. The sword materialised in her grasp with a blink, silver blade gleaming even in the dark alleyway.

Shiho stuttered. Her foot slipped back a step, the visage of insane rage faltered for but a moment. "Interloper," she spat. Then she gathered her resolve, squared on to her adversary with a narrowed gaze. "Does she really mean that much to you?"

"I shouldn't have to answer that."

"Yet I still have to ask," replied Shiho in a voice that was not her own. "I was under the impression that the dragon was your only concern in this."

Midori ignored the question. "Why must you twist the poor girl's mind like this?" Her tone was still low and deadly serious; her opponent answered with an angry hiss.

"She brings out your most territorial instincts," it commented almost offhandedly, glancing back to the red-haired body lying slumped up against the wall of the alley nearby.

"Daughters do that," replied Midori in a carefully level voice.

"Daughter?" Shiho, who was not Shiho, laughed uproariously. "You know as well as I do that you can never have that…pleasure." The words rolled from her tongue as if contemptuous, mocking. Midori gave half a smirk in reply.

"You'd be amazed what a little technology can do these days."

Again the strange voice on Shiho's lips spoke, this time a darker, softer tone, both wary and calculating. Her eyes fell upon Mai's prone body, still unconscious. "So…an artificial birth…Kagutsuchi?" She cocked her head slightly to one side, a look of bewilderment overcoming her features. "A hybrid?" Suddenly, it was fire in her eyes and in her face, hatred most malevolent. "_Intolerable_."

"That's quite enough," growled Midori, sword streaking already. "Back where you belong."

It felt rather like biting down on a sheet of foil with a mouthful of fillings, oddly enough. As usual, there was the sudden burst of static that shot up Midori's spine and made her hair stand on end like a giant puffball. The tip of the sword plunged effortlessly through the barrier surrounding Shiho's body and skewered the youngster neatly through the torso, in right between two ribs just left of her breastbone and out the back with not a trace of blood, bisecting her heart. The blade shone a brilliant blue for a moment, and Shiho let out an earth-shattering scream. Then a silent explosion of light turned the darkness of the alleyway into a barren white plain.

The flowing concrete at Shiho's feet froze into place, like some impromptu public art sculpture. The twirl of fabric wrapped around her body began to fray and soften, and her hair untied itself into a single vast pink mass. Midori felt the sword abruptly wink out of existence between her fingers and then watched the pink-haired girl crumple into a heap on the dirty ground with a muffled thump.

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We are all agreed, then. She has simply gone too far this time. This is way beyond her usual intimidation.

She has destroyed our only vessel, but she cannot possibly imagine that this will limit our overall influence on Earth. Identifying a replacement should pose little difficulty now.

Withdrawal is not an option at this stage, unfortunately. If we are to succeed in our infiltration, it is imperative that we apply ourselves totally to this endeavour, every one of us. This is no time for divided loyalties; humanity is still unaware of our presence here but that will not last long. These few have already begun to understand. We cannot allow them to stand in the way, now or ever. The more subversive options are being closed off one by one. Soon a covert infiltration will be all but impossible from our position here.

Yes, the child is a problem. One we had not anticipated. The possibility of this _hybrid_ is dangerous not only to our plan but to all of us. The Collective should recognise that whether or not they agree with our methods.

Regardless, right now the most dangerous aspect of this entire operation is deployment. If the right pieces are not in their correct positions at exactly the right time, the consequences will be dire. A rupture is bound to occur if the boundary remains under this level of stress for any length of time. Even we should not entertain notions of such a catastrophic event.

We should concentrate on silencing her as our primary goal for now. If she cannot be eliminated physically, then she must be removed from the situation entirely. Force her into a corner. We now have a powerful bargaining tool; even if she were bluffing, she would never allow us to harm the child. Her mind is filled with her own delusions of self-righteousness.

This construct, this "android," this should be our highest priority. This is the only weapon the humans have against us. We cannot allow its existence to continue.

We have been monitoring the humans' progress with their "Child" project. This should serve our purpose well enough. It has already been decided which of us was to be chosen for this duty. Our entire operation will depend on you. Do not fail.

Commandeer the unit. Destroy the facility. Then…start killing. She will have no choice but to play her part exactly as planned.

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It was midnight somewhere in the vast wilderness of the Arizona desert. It was the time for life in the unforgiving wasteland to be up and active above the dry, dusty ground. The baking heat of the sun had long since leaked away into the cold, clear night sky. Out in the desert, there were no flocks of night birds to fill the air with their calls, only the occasional insects chirping here and there, a few small rodents dashing about the rocky faces of giant steep-walled mesas rising hundreds of feet into the air. In the dead of night, the desert was a sea of black, dotted here and there with clusters of broad rocky islands, flat shapes floating on an unmoving ocean reflecting slivers of moonlight that utterly lacked the softly undulating quality of such reflections on real water.

With such clear air and no light pollution from any nearby cities, the sky was empty of clouds on most nights. Normally invisible stars lit up the night; an immense black shroud adorned with billions of wildly scattered candles all shining from some impossible distance. The thick bright blur of the Milky Way was clearly visible stretching right across the sky from one horizon to the other. To the far north, low in the sky shone Polaris, a heavenly lighthouse suspended a million miles above the Earth.

From the outside, Prometheus looked like the eternally clichéd old military base-come-research facility that science fiction was so fond of, with its utilitarian grey single-storey concrete buildings arranged in small clusters around the large main compound, surrounded by a ten foot high wall running around the perimeter. An abandoned runway stretched along the northern edge of the compound, the tarmac faded and cracked from age and neglect. The control tower had been dismantled long ago and only the steel framework skeleton of a modest hangar building remained. A helipad had been put in place much later in one corner of the main courtyard, a hundred feet from anything, nestled in against the rigid outer wall of the compound. The surface gleamed like polished obsidian in the moonlight, with the stylised P.R.L. logo sharply defined: Prometheus Research Laboratories, a formality upon which the CEO had been oddly insistent.

The seven rectangular buildings arrayed in a neat column wedged into one corner of the facility could have passed for a large barracks seen from the air. Corrugated metal freight doors, twenty-four-hour guards and the sheer bulk of pipes, cables and other assorted supply lines all siphoned into one end from the various separate processing areas of the compound might have seemed a little excessive, however. In truth, the main building was merely a façade, the tip of an enormous subterranean iceberg almost twice the size of the surface compound and far more densely packed with labs, offices, machinery and everything else the facility needed. The only things that were ever brought in from outside were the regular food deliveries, water from outside pipelines and from the experimental condenser tower, auxiliary energy from a nearby wind farm, and the occasional material or equipment samples from various international donators.

A hundred feet below the sand, sealed behind lead-reinforced concrete walls a metre thick, was hidden a miniature nuclear reactor. A ten-foot-wide cube with a dozen pipes and cables leading in and out, the top face covered in a pattern of circular holes into which slotted the control rods, set on a retractable panel that could be raised and lowered as required with ease even by hand. The cube gave a constant hum that resonated through the sturdy metal bracings securing it in place at one end of a long rectangular room the size of an aircraft hangar.

Between the reactor itself at one end and the single enormous reinforced door at the other, there was a broad metal catwalk suspended several feet above the floor. On either side at regular intervals were spaced three-metre tall glass cylinders filled with a viscous translucent green fluid, each one encircled by a thick metal belt just level with the catwalk itself, and covered in screens and panels and buttons and switches of all kinds. In all, there were twenty cylinders, ten on each side of the room arranged in a staggered formation. At the end of the room, with the reactor in the centre, a large space had been left between the tubes and the back wall, allowing for an immense bank of computer equipment to the left of the reactor complete with several bolted metal chairs and keyboard consoles. Opposite, protruding halfway out of the wall, was a single gigantic black sphere.

It was almost seven metres across, not that anyone besides the original construction team had ever seen it in full. Perfectly black, perfectly smooth, perfectly seamless. The only imperfection was a single oval window four feet across set into the side that allowed a view of the interior. Inside, a mysterious crimson substance glowed dimly with its own inner warmth, like a hot ball of iron.

The designer had called it the Creation Engine.

It had just gone midnight, and only two people were left inside the vault room. The usual system technician was busy tapping away commands into a console with incredible speed, filling one screen up with line after line of code while his eyes were busy with another. The huge panel screen up above was showing a three-dimensional representation of what might have been a nuclear fusion reaction system, or perhaps a very interesting screensaver. The other man was a theoretical particle physicist by nature, and couldn't really tell.

"What's taking so long?" The man in the lab coat looked at his watch again, for about the fifteenth time in an hour. "It shouldn't take this much just to alter the transcription codes."

The technician gave him a humourless look. "Do I tell _you_ how to manipulate quantum probability?" He turned back to the task at hand without waiting for an answer, not that one would come he knew. "This equipment takes a lot of tweaking to get it right, and it's my job to make sure it's tweaked right. Or would you rather we let off a nuclear explosion in the middle of a crowded workplace?"

"Inside a chamber that's been explicitly designed to withstand twice the explosive force that reactor is capable of, not to mention the radiation." The physicist sighed again, and rifled his papers, again.

Click.

That wasn't the sound of a finger on a key. The man in the lab coat blinked. At first, he turned to look, to find out just where the odd sound had come from. It had certainly been loud enough to hear over the tapping of fingers, and sharp enough to be unusual. But then, somehow, a feeling of overwhelming urgency came over him, forcing him to stay put, as if turning round was probably the worst thing he would ever do. Instead, he cleared his throat.

"Did you…" He blinked again. It would sound stupid, but… "Did you…hear something?"

The technician looked up for a moment, opened his mouth to reply with something else derogatory. Before he could say anything, there was another click noise. His fingers froze in place at once, and his eyes widened.

"That…that wasn't you, was it?"

"You heard it?"

There was an agonisingly long moment of silence. Both men stood, or sat, respectively, almost frozen in place. They had both definitely heard something, quite what they could not say, but whatever it was certainly…_felt_ bad. Then it happened.

The Engine spoke.

Deep within the microscopically modelled womb of the Creation Engine, a hundred billion machines no bigger than a single atom all sprang to life at once. The reddish fluid that made up most of the constituent soup was inert, but the high concentrations of hydrogen and helium gases suspended in the mixture made easy prey, disassembled into their components within seconds. Once the fluid had been reduced to a sea of sub-atomic particles, the red tint turned instantly opaque. Pressure rose at a phenomenal rate, setting off warnings and triggering alarms in the huge bank of computers.

Nothing the computer did could stop it. The paste itself was no longer under the control of the central processor; a spherical globule of nano-robots capable of replicating themselves into infinity, all now working towards some unknown goal with incalculable efficiency.

The Creation Engine gave an ear-splitting crack as its skin split neatly in two, rending a fissure a foot deep straight through the incredibly strong metal structure. Nano-robotic paste squirted from the crack at high pressure, spraying all over the walls like red rain, coalescing on the floor into a rapidly growing pool. The catwalk began to dissolve, along with the high-tensile ceramic shell of the Engine, and the computer consoles, and the glass tubes, and the surfaces of the reactor, and everything else the paste touched. More and more, consuming everything from the two bewildered humans to the very air inside the room, the machines replicated over and over a thousand-fold, a million, until there were enough to create what they had been ordered to create. And then, just as the huge semi-conscious network intelligence that the nanomachines had formed began to realise that there would never be enough sheer energy to perform such an incredible task…the reactor casing fractured.

The room contained the fifteen-kiloton blast just as it had been designed. It did not contain what came after.


	10. FINAL NOTICE

I feel like I owe you all an apology.

This story, started over seven years ago, and pretty much utterly abandoned for years now, has spiralled utterly out of my control. What began as an ambitious, foolheardy attempt to put a wacky little crossover idea into words quickly became an exercise in mediocrity, full of terrible characterisation, pointless cultural references, anachronisms, horribly written dialogue, a complete lack of coherent plot and no real aim whatsoever. Most of this is attribute to the fact that I am absolutely awful at anything but tiny little one-shots that don't require much extended thought. Also, I have no attention span.

So, yeah, this story will never be finished. After years of trying to get back into it and failing horribly, I have come to recognise it as the utter trainwreck of craptastrophe that it truly is. It is dead. For its own sake, I am killing it now before it tries to lure me back in once again.

Let this be a lesson to all of you; don't start a long-runner without some serious planning.

And, again, I apologize to anyone who was waiting in vain to see more of this. That day will never come. 


End file.
